UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

The European Theater of Operations
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
By
Charles B. MacDonald
CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
UNITED STATES ARMY
WASHINGTON, D. C., 1993
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 71–183070
First Printed 1973—CMH Pub 7–9–1
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402
UNI TED STATES ARMY I N WORLD WAR II
Maurice Matloff, General Editor
Advisory Committee
(As of 1 February 1972)
Walter C. Langsam
University of Cincinnati
Edward M. Coffman
University of Wisconsin
Louis Morton
Dartmouth College
Peter Paret
Stanford University
Forrest C. Pogue
George C. Marshall
Research Foundation
Maj. Gen. Edward Bautz, J r.
United States Continental Army Command
Brig. Gen. J ames M. Gibson
United States Army Command and
General Staff College
Brig. Gen. Wallace C. Magathan, J r.
United States Army War College
Col. Thomas E. Griess
United States Military Academy
Frank E. Vandiver
Rice University
Office of the Chief of Military History
Brig. Gen. J ames L. Collins, J r., Chief of Military History
Chief Historian Maurice Matloff
Chief, Historical Services Division Col. Robert H. Fechtman
Chief, Histories Division
Col. J ohn E. J essup, J r.
Editor in Chief
Joseph R. Friedman
iii
. . . to Those Who Served
Foreword
Recovering rapidly from the shock of German counteroffensives in the
Ardennes and Alsace, Allied armies early in J anuary 1945 began an offen-
sive that gradually spread all along the line from the North Sea to Switzer-
land and continued until the German armies and the German nation were
prostrate in defeat. This volume tells the story of that offensive, one which
eventually involved more than four and a half million troops, including ninety-
one divisions, sixty-one of which were American.
The focus of the volume is on the role of the American armies — First,
Third, Seventh, Ninth, and, to a lesser extent, Fifteenth — which comprised
the largest and most powerful military force the United States has ever put
in the field. The role of Allied armies — First Canadian, First French, and
Second British — is recounted in sufficient detail to put the role of American.
armies in perspective, as is the story of tactical air forces in support of the
ground troops.
This is the ninth volume in a subseries of ten designed to record the his-
tory of the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations. One
volume, The Riviera to the Rhine, remains to be published.
Washington, D.C.
5 J une 1972
J AMES L. COLLINS, J R.
Brigadier General, USA
Chief of Military History
vii
The Author
Charles B. MacDonald is the author of The Siegfried Line Campaign
and co-author of Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo, and Schmidt, both in
the official series UNI TED STATES ARMY I N WORLD WAR II. He has
supervised the preparation of other volumes in the European and Mediter-
ranean theater subseries and is a contributor to Command Decisions and
American Military History. He is also the author of Company Commander
(Washington: 1947) , Th e Battle of the Huertgen Forest (Philadelphia:
1963), The Mighty Endeavor (New York: 1969), and Airborne (New
York: 1970). A graduate of Presbyterian College, he also holds the Li tt.D.
degree from that institution. In 1957 he received a Secretary of the Army
Research and Study Fellowship and spent a year studying the interrelation-
ship of terrain, weapons, and tactics on European battlefields. A colonel in
the Army Reserve, he holds the Purple Heart and Silver Star. As Deputy
Chief Historian for Southeast Asia, he is currently engaged in preparing
the official history of the United States Army in Vietnam.
viii
Preface
The American armies that absorbed the shock of the German counter-
offensives in the Ardennes and Alsace in the winter of 1944–45 were the
most powerful and professional that the United States had yet put in the
field. That this was the case was abundantly demonstrated as the final cam-
paign to reduce Nazi Germany to total defeat unfolded.
The campaign was remarkably varied. As it gathered momentum in
the snows of the Ardennes and the mud and pillboxes of the West Wall,
the fighting was often as bitter as any that had gone before among the
hedgerows of Normandy and the hills and forests of the German frontier.
Yet the defense which the Germans were still able to muster following the
futile expenditure of lives and means in the counteroffensives was brittle.
The campaign soon evolved into massive sweeps by powerful Allied col-
umns across the width and breadth of Germany. That the Germans could
continue to resist for more than two months in the face of such overwhelm-
ing power was a testament to their pertinacity but it was a grim tragedy as
well. To such an extent had they subjugated themselves to their Nazi leaders
that they were incapable of surrender at a time when defeat was inevitable
and surrender would have spared countless lives on both sides.
I t was a dramatic campaign: the sweep of four powerful U.S. armies to
the Rhine; the exhilarating capture of a bridge at Remagen; assault cross-
ings of the storied Rhine River, including a spectacular airborne assault;
an ill-fated armored raid beyond Allied lines; the trapping of masses of
Germans in a giant pocket in the Ruhr industrial region; the uncovering
of incredible horror in German concentration camps; a dashing thrust to
the Elbe River; juncture with the Russians; and a Wagnerian climax played
to the accompaniment of Russian artillery fire in the Fuehrerbunker in
Berlin.
This volume is chronologically the final work in the European theater
subseries of the UNI TED STATES ARMY I N WORLD WAR II. I n point
of time, it follows The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, previously published,
and The Riviera to the Rhine, still in preparation.
Even more than most of the volumes in the official history, this one is
the work of many people. The author is particularly indebted to two his-
torians who earlier worked on the project: Gordon A. Harrison, author of
Cross-Channel Attack, whose felicity of phrase may still be apparent in
some of the early chapters, and Fred J . Meyer, who prepared a preliminary
ix
draft of the entire work. The volume as it stands owes much to their con-
tributions. Mrs. Magna E. Bauer prepared a number of detailed and valua-
ble studies on the German side. As always, Mrs. Lois Aldridge of the World
War II Records Division, National Archives and Records Service, displayed
remarkable patience in assisting the author’s exploration of mountains of
records. More than forty senior American officers, including Generals of the
Army Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar N. Bradley, Generals J acob L.
Devers and William H. Simpson, and four senior German officers, includ-
ing General Hasso von Manteuffel, gave generously of their time in reading
and commenting on all or parts of the manuscript. Assistance was also re-
ceived from the Cabinet Office Historical Section, London; the Directorate
of History, Canadian Forces Headquarters, Ottawa; and the Militaerge-
schichtliches Forschungsamt, Freiburg.
Within the editorial staff, I am particularly grateful for the assistance
of Mrs. Loretto C. Stevens: the copy editors were Mrs. Stephanie B. Demma,
Mr. Alfred M. Beck, and Mrs. J oyce W. Hardyman. Mr. Elliot Dunay and
his staff, Mr. Howell C. Brewer and Mr. Roger D. Clinton, prepared the
maps. The cartographic staff was supplemented by men of the United States
Army to whom I am especially grateful: Specialist 5 Arthur S. Hardyman,
Specialist 5 Edward S. Custer, Specialist 4 Daryl L. DeFrance, and Specialist
5 Mark C. Finnemann. Miss Margaret L. Emerson made the index.
The author alone is responsible for interpretations and conclusions, as
well as for any errors that may appear.
Washington, D.C.
5 J une 1972
CHARLES B. M.AcDONALD
Contents
Chapter Page
I . PRELUDE TO VICTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Allied Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Allied Versus German Strength . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Weapons and Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Organization and Command . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Terrain and the Front Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
II . VICTORY I N THE ARDENNES . . . . . . . . . . . 22
The First Army’s Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
A Grim Struggle Around Bastogne . . . . . . . . . . 33
The Drive on St . Vi t h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Northward Across the Sûre . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
III. MAIN EFFORT I N THE EIFEL . . . . . . . . . . . 55
General Bradley’s Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
The Eifel Highlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The Enemy in the Eifel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
A Try for Quick Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
A Shift t o the North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
An End to the Offensive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
IV. THE ROER RIVER DAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Toward Schmidt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Toward the Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
V . THE DRIVE ON PRUEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
84
Into the West Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
German Countermeasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
The Final Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
VI . BITBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE . . . . . . . .
99
Crossing the Sauer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
The Vianden Bulge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Expanding the XII Corps Bridgehead . . . . . . . . . 112
To Bitburg and the Kyll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
xi
Chapter Page
VII. THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRIANGLE . . . . . . . . . . 116
Probing the Orscholz Switch . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Expanding the Penetration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Broadening the Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Crossing the Saar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
VIII. OPERATION GRENADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
The Terrain and the Enemy . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Catch-as-Catch-Can . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Objectives and Maneuvers . . . . . . . . . . . . .
142
Challenging the Swollen River . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
The First Day on the East Bank . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Th e VII Corps at Dueren . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
The First Day’s Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
I X. NI NTH ARMY TO THE RHI NE . . . . . . . . . . 163
The Third and Fourth Days . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Rundstedt’s Appeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
170
Pursuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Efforts To Seize a Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
The Wesel Pocket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
The Beginning of the End . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
X . OPERATION LUMBERJ ACK . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Toward Bonn and Remagen . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Patton i n the Eifel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
XI . A RHI NE BRI DGE AT REMAGEN .......... 208
The Germans at Remagen . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
T h e Hope for a Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Advance to the Rhine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
The Crisis at the Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Reaction t o the Coup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
On the German Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Build-up and Command Problems . . . . . . . . . . 222
The End of the Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Expansion of the Bridgehead . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
XII. THE SAAR-PALATINATE . . . . . . . . . . . . .
236
American Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
The Defenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
241
Through the Hunsrueck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Across the Lower Moselle . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
246
Plunge to the Nahe and Fall of Koblenz . . . . . . . . .
249
Seventh Army’s Deliberate Attack . . . . . . . . . .
252
xii
Chapter Page
Breakthrough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Thrust to the Rhi ne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
XIII . THE RHI NE CROSSINGS I N THE SOUTH . . . . . . .
266
The VIII Corps in the Rhine Gorge .......... 273
To the Main River and Frankfurt . . . . . . . . . .
279
The Hammelburg Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . .
280
The Seventh Army Crossing at Worms . . . . . . . . .
284
The XX Corps in the Rhine-Main Arc ......... 289
XIV . THE RHI NE CROSSINGS I N THE NORTH
. . . . . . 294
The Big Build-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
296
Interdiction From the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . .
300
The View From the East Bank . . . . . . . . . . . .
301
“Two if by sea” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
302
Operation Flashpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
303
The Drive to the Railroads . . . . . . . . . . . . .
307
Operation Varsity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
309
At t he End of D-Day ............... 314
The Try for a Breakout . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
315
How To Bring the Ninth Army’s Power To Bear ..... 317
XV . AT THE END OF MARCH ............. 321
An Awesome Power ............... 322
The Logistical Backbone . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
324
Decisions at the Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
The Plight of the Germans . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
A Decision on Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
339
XVI . REDUCING THE RUHR . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
344
The Breakout Offensive . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
346
Collapse of the LXXXI X Corps . . . . . . . . . . .
348
A Tur n to the North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
350
The Thrust From Winterberg . . . . . . . . . . . .
354
Breakthrough North of the Ruhr
. . . . . . . . . . . 357
Making Motions at Breakout . . . . . . . . . . . .
359
The Ruhr Pocket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
362
“The predominant color was white.” . . . . . . . . . 368
XVII . SWEEP TO THE ELBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
373
A New Allied Main Effort
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
379
Th e Role of the Third Army
. . . . . . . . . . . .
381
A Bridgehead to Nowhere . . . . . . . . . . . . .
384
A Flak-Infested Route to the Mulde
. . . . . . . . . . . 389
A Short New War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
395
xiii
Chapter
Page
XVIII. THE MYTH OF THE REDOUBT . . .
. . . . . . . 407
The First Phase Beyond the Rhi ne . . . . . . . . . . 409
The Struggle for Heilbronn and Crailsheim
. . . . . . . 415
To the Hohe Rhoen and Schweinfurt . . ....... 418
A Shift to South and Southeast . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Nuremberg and the Drive t o the Danube . . . . . . . . 422
T h e Drive on Stuttgart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
A French Incursion to Ulm . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
The “Stuttgart Incident” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
From the Danube Int o Austria . . . . . . . . . . . 433
XIX. GOETTERDAEMMERUNG . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
The Meeting at Torgau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
The End in Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
The Drive to the Baltic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
Piecemeal Surrenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Surrender at Reims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
XX. EPILOGUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
Appendix
A. TABLE OF EQUIVALENT RANKS . . . . . . . . . . 483
B. RECIPIENTS OF THE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS 484
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
CODE NAMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
BASIC MILITARY MAP SYMBOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Maps
No.
1. Main Effort in the Eifel. 27 J anuary–3 February 1945 . . . . 61
2. The Capture of Schmidt and the Schwammenauel Dam.
5–9 February 1945 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3. The Remagen Bridgehead. 7–24 March 1945 . . . . . . . 218
4. Foray to Hammelburg. 25–27 March 1945 . . . . . . . . 282
5. Reduction of the Ruhr Pocket. 4–14 April 1945 . . . . . . 363
6. The Harz Pocket. 11–17 April 1945 . . . . . . . . . . 403
7. The American-Russian Linkup. 25 April 1945 . . . . . . 449
8. Drive to the Baltic. 29 April–2 May 1945 . . . . . . . . . 462
9. Action at Fern Pass. 44th Infantry Division. 1–4 May 1945 . . . 470
xiv
Maps I–XVII are in accompanying map envelope
No.
I . The Western Front, 3 J anuary 1945
II. The Ardennes Counteroffensive, 3–28 J anuary 1945
III. The Drive on Pruem
IV. Clearing of the Vianden Bulge and the Capture of Bitburg,
6–28 February 1945
V. The Saar-Moselle Triangle, 13 J anuary–1 March 1945
VI. Operation GRENADE, 22 February–11 March 1945
VI I . Eliminating the Wesel Pocket, 3–11 March 1945
VI I I . Operation LUMBERJ ACK, 1–7 March 1945
I X. The Saar-Palatinate Triangle, 12–21 March 1945
X. The Rhine River Crossings in the South, 22–28 March 1945
XI. Rhine Crossings in the North, 24–28 March 1945
XI I . Breakout From Remagen, 24–28 March 1945
XIII. Encircling the Ruhr, 28 March–1 April 1945
XIV. Drive to the Elbe, 424 April 1945
XV. Sixth Army Group Offensive, 27 March–24 April 1945
XVI. Into Austria and Czechoslovakia, 28 April–8 May 1945
XVI I . V–E Day, 8 May 1945
Illustrations
Page
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, and Lt. Gen.
George S. Patton, J r. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . 3
Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt . . . . . . . . . . . 6
M4 Sherman Tank in the Ardennes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
M4A3 Sherman Tank With 76-mm. Gun . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Maj. Gen. J . Lawton Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel . . . . . . . . . 30
Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Wind-Swept Snow in the Ardennes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Patrols of the First and Third Armies Meet at Houffalize . . . . . . 42
Maj. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Medics Use a “Litter-J eep” To Evacuate Patients . . . . . . . . . 47
Men of the 82d Airborne Division Pull Sleds Through the Ardennes Snow 62
Traffic J am on a Slick Ardennes Road . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Maj. Gen. C. Ralph Huebner . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
The Urft Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
The Schwammenauel Dam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Damage to the Schwammenauel Dam Causes Flooding of the Roer River 82
xv
Page
Maj . Gen . Troy H . Middleton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Men of the 4th Division Eating Inside Captured Pillbox . . . . . . 87
Dropping Supplies by Parachute to the 4th Division . . . . . . . 97
Maj . Gen . Manton S . Eddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Crossing Site on the Sauer River Near Echternach . . . . . . . . 102
Welcome to Germany From the 6th Armored Division . . . . . . . 110
Crew of a 3-Inch Gun on the Watch for German Tanks . . . . . . 119
Removing German Dead After Fighting in Nennig . . . . . . . . 121
Maj . Gen . Walton H . Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Lt . Gen . William H . Simpson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
General der Infanterie Gustav von Zangen . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Bursts of White Phosphorus Shells Light Up the Roer River . . . . . 144
Crossing Sites at Linnich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Derelict Assault Boats Near Linnich . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Smoke Pots Along the Roer Near Dueren . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Crossing Sites at J uelich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Footbridge Across the Roer Serves Men of the 30th Division . . . . . 152
Crossing Sites at Dueren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Maj . Gen . Raymond S . McLain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Maj . Gen . J ohn B . Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Pershing Tank T26 With 90.mm. Gun . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Maj . Gen . Alvan C . Gillem, J r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Generaloberst J ohannes Blaskowitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
The Demolished Hohenzollern Bridge at Cologne . . . . . . . . 190
Maj . Gen . J ohn Millikin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
2d Lt . Karl H . Timmerman. First Officer To Cross the Remagen Bridge . 215
Sgt . Alexander Drabik. First American Across the Rhine . . . . . . 217
Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Ludendorff Railroad Bridge at Remagen . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Maj . Gen . J ames A . Van Fleet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
The Rhine at the Remagen Bridge Site . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Lt . Gen . J acob L . Devers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Lt . Gen . Alexander M . Patch, J r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Engineers of the 87th Division Ferry a Tank Across the Moselle . . . . 251
Troops of the 63d Division Cross Dragon’s Teeth of the West Wall . . 255
Reinforcements of the 5th Division Cross the Rhine in an LCVP . . . 271
Crossing the Rhine Under Enemy Fire at St . Goar . . . . . . . . 277
Raising the American Flag Atop the Lorelei . . . . . . . . . . 278
Maj . Gen . Wade H . Haislip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Infantry of the 3d Division Climb the East Bank of the Rhine . . . . 288
Duplex-Drive Tank With Skirt Folded . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Duplex-Drive Tank Enters the Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Field Marshal Sir Bernard L . Montgomery . . . . . . . . . . . 296
American Paratrooper Caught in a Tree . . . . . . . . . . . 310
xvi
Page
Glider Troops After Landing Near Wesel . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
The Rhine Railroad Bridge at Wesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Bridge at Mainz . . . . . . . . 327
Ponton Bridge Across the Rhine . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
328
Liberated Prisoners of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Destruction in the Heart of Wurzburg . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Infantrymen of the 79th Division Cross the Rhein-Herne Canal . . . . 364
Russian Prisoners Liberated by the Ninth Army . . . . . . . . . 368
German Soldiers Make Their Way Unguarded to a Prisoner-of-War Camp 369
Prisoners of War in the Ruhr Pocket . . . . . . . . . . . . .
371
White Flags Hang Above a Deserted Street . . . . . . . . . . . 377
German Prisoners Head for the Rear as American Armor Advances . . 382
German Civilians Carry Victims of Concentration Camp for Reburial . 383
Infantrymen Ride an Armored Car in the Race to the Elbe . . . . . 388
Crossing of the Weser River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
A 12.8-cm. “Flak” Gun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
“Sixty-One Minute Roadblock’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Maj. Gen. Frank W. Milburn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Lt. Gen. Edward H. Brooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
A Tank of the 14th Armored Division Enters Prison Camp at
Hammelburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
A Patrol of the 3d Division Makes I ts Way Through the Rubble of
Nuremberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
General J ean de Lattre de Tassigny . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Tanks of the 20th Armored Division Ford the I nn River . . . . . . 440
Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division Approach Berchtesgaden . . 441
2d Lt. William D. Robertson Shows General Eisenhower His Makeshift Flag 455
General Hodges Meets the Russians at the Elbe . . . . . . . . . . 457
Men of the 103d Division Find Resistance in the Austrian Alps . . . . 463
Austrian Civilians Greet American Troops in Innsbruck . . . . . . 468
Czechoslovakian Villagers Welcome Tank Crew . . . . . . . . . 469
Illustrations are from Department of Defense files .
xvii
The U.S. Army Center of Military History
The Center of Military History prepares and publishes histories as required by
the U.S. Army. It coordinates Army historical matters, including historical proper-
ties, and supervises the Army museum system. It also maintains liaison with public
and private agencies and individuals to stimulate interest and study i n the field
of military history. The Center is located at 1099 14th Street, N.W., Washington,
D.C. 20005–3402.
xviii
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
CHAPTER I
Prelude to Victory
By the third day of J anuary 1945, the
Germans in the snow-covered Ardennes
region of Belgium and Luxembourg had
shot their bolt. The winter counter-
offensive, one of the more dramatic
events of World War II in Europe, was
not over in the sense that the original
front lines had been restored, but the
outcome could no longer be questioned.
A week earlier the Third U.S. Army had
established contact with an embattled
American force at the road center of
Bastogne, well within the southern
shoulder of the German penetration. At
this point it could be only a matter of
time before the Third Army linked with
the First U.S. Army driving down from
the northern shoulder. Adolf Hitler, the
German Fuehrer, himself admitted on 3
J anuary that the Ardennes operation,
under its original concept, was “no
longer promising of success.” 1
On this third day of J anuary the First
Army began its attack to link with the
Third Army, to push in what had be-
come known as the “bulge,” and to reach
the Rhine River. It was an attack des-
tined to secure the tactical initiative that
the Allied armies had lost temporarily
in the December fighting but which,
once regained, they would hold until
after Hitler was dead and the German
1 Magna E. Bauer, MS #R–15, Key Dates Dur-
ing the Ardennes Offensive 1944, Part 1, annotated
copy in OCMH.
armed forces and nation were prostrate.
One day later on the fourth, the Third
Army, which had been attacking in the
Ardennes since 22 December, was to
start a new phase in its campaign to push
in the southern portion of the bulge.
On these two days in early J anuary,
deep in the Ardennes, the Allies began,
in effect, their last great offensive of the
war in Europe.
Not that the entire front-stretching
some 450 airline miles from the North
Sea to the Swiss border-burst immedi-
ately into flame. ( Map I ) * Indeed, the
Germans no longer ago than New Year’s
Eve had launched a second counter-
offensive-Operation NORD WIND-
near the southern end of the Allied line
in Alsace. This would take more than a
fortnight to subdue. 2 Yet the fighting in
Alsace, no matter how real and trying to
the men and units involved, was a sec-
ondary effort. The true turn the war was
taking was more apparent in the north,
where the last offensive materialized
slowly, even gropingly, as the First and
Third Armies sought to eradicate the
last vestiges of the enemy’s thrust in the
Ardennes. One by one the other Allied
armies would join the fight.
* Maps numbered in Roman are in accompany-
ing map envelope.
2 Robert Ross Smith, The Riviera to the Rhine,
a volume in preparation for the series UNITED
STATES ARMY I N WORLD WAR II.
2
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Allied Strategy
As soon as the Western Allies could
repair their ruptured line, they could get
back to what they had been about that
cold, mist-clad morning of 16 December
when the Germans had appeared without
warning in the forests of the Ardennes. 3
Not only could the attacks and prepara-
tions that had been in progress be re-
sumed in somewhat altered form but
also a lively debate could be renewed
among Allied commanders as to the
proper course for Allied strategy. The
debate had begun in August after the
extent of the enemy’s defeat in Nor-
mandy had become apparent.
I n planning which preceded the in-
vasion of Europe, General Dwight D.
Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Al-
lied Expeditionary Force, and his ad-
visers had agreed to build up strength
in a lodgment area in France, then to
launch two major thrusts into Germany.
One was to pass north of the Ardennes
to seize the Ruhr industrial region, Ger-
many’s primary arsenal, the other south
of the Ardennes to assist the main drive
and at the same time eliminate the lesser
Saar industrial area. 4
3 Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the
Bulge, UNITED STATES ARMY I N WORLD
WAR II (Washington, 1965).
4 SHAEF Planning Staff draft, Post-NEPTUNE
Courses of Action After Capture of the Lodgment
Area, Main Objectives and Axis of Advance, I, 3
May 1944, SHAEF SGS 381, Post-OVERLORD Plan-
ning, I. The preinvasion plan and the debate are
discussed in some detail in four volumes of the
European theater subseries of the UNITED
STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II: Hugh M.
Cole, The Lorraine Campaign (Washington, 1950);
Forrest C. Pogue, The Supreme Command (Wash-
ington, 1954); Martin Blumenson, Breakout and
Pursuit (Washington, 1961); and Charles B. Mac-
Donald, The Siegfried Line Campaign (Washing-
ton, 1963).
I n the event, the extent of German
defeat in Normandy had exceeded any-
thing the preinvasion planners had fore-
seen; the Allies had gained the proposed
limits of the lodgment area and had kept
going in an uninterrupted drive against
a fleeing enemy. When it appeared likely
that failing to pause to allow the armies’
logistical tails to catch up soon would
limit operations, the senior British field
commander in the theater, Field Marshal
Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, had asked
Eisenhower to abandon the secondary
thrust. Concentrate everything, Mont-
gomery urged, on one bold, end-the-war
offensive north of the Ardennes, to be
conducted primarily by Montgomery’s
command, the 21 Army Group. The
commander of the 12th U.S. Army
Group, Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley,
favored instead a thrust by his First and
Thi rd U.S. Armies generally south of
the Ardennes along the shortest route
into Germany. One of Bradley’s subordi-
nates, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, J r., had
insisted that his command alone, the
Third Army, could do the job.
Unmoved by the arguments, General
Eisenhower had continued to favor the
preinvasion plan. While granting con-
cessions to the main thrust in the north,
including support from the First U.S.
Army and the First Allied Airborne
Army and a temporary halt in offensive
operations by the Thi rd Army, he had
held to the design of advancing on a
broad front.
As operations developed, the 21 Army
Group with the First Canadian and Sec-
ond British Armies had advanced gen-
erally north of the Ardennes through
the Belgian plain into the Netherlands,
while the First U.S. Army had provided
GENERALS EISEOWER (center) , BRADLEY (left), AND PATTON CONFER IN THE
ARDENNES
4 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
support with a drive across eastern Bel-
gium into what became known as the
Aachen Gap. The Third Army, mean-
while, had moved across northern France
into Lorraine. I n the south a new Allied
force, the 6th Army Group, commanded
by Lt. Gen. J acob L. Devers and com-
posed of the Seventh U.S. and First
French Armies, had come ashore in
southern France and extended the Allied
front into Alsace.
At that point the Germans, strength-
ened along their frontier by inhospitable
terrain and concrete fortifications (the
West Wall, or, as Allied troops called it,
the Siegfried Line) , and by proximity to
their sources of supply as opposed to
ever-lengthening Allied supply lines, had
turned to fight back with surprising
effect. Through the fall of 1944 they had
limited Allied gains in the south to the
German frontier along the Saar River
and the upper Rhine. I n the north, de-
spite a spectacular airborne assault in the
Netherlands by the First Allied Airborne
Army, they had held the 21 Army Group
generally south and west of the Maas
River and the First Army west of the
Roer River, less than 23 miles inside
Germany.
Through the fall campaign, debate
over a concentrated thrust in the north
as opposed to Eisenhower’s broad-front
strategy had continued to arise from
time to time in one form or another.
Tied in with it was a long-standing tenet
of Field Marshal Montgomery’s that
Eisenhower should designate a single,
over-all ground commander, presumably
Montgomery himself To both argu-
ments, Eisenhower had continued to say
no. The front was too long, he said, for
one man to control it all; that was the
reason for having army groups and
armies. As to advance on a broad front,
he believed it would be “very important
to us later on to have two strings to our
bow.” 5
Yet what persuasion could not effect,
the enemy counteroffensive in part had
wrought. With the German drive threat-
ening to split the 12th Army Group,
Eisenhower had given Montgomery tem-
porary command of all forces north of
the penetration. Not only was the First
Army included but also the Ninth U.S.
Army, which had entered the line in
October north of Aachen between the
First Army and the British.
The debate had arisen again as the
year 1944 came to a close. As soon as the
Ardennes breach could be repaired, Gen-
eral Eisenhower revealed, he intended to
return the First Army to General Brad-
ley’s command and to resume operations
within the framework of the broad-front
strategy. The First and Third Armies
were to drive from the Ardennes through
the Eifel to reach the Rhine south of
the Ruhr, while the 21 Army Group was
to retain the Ninth Army and make a
major drive to the Rhine north of the
Ruhr. 6
Even as the fighting to eliminate the
enemy in the Ardennes developed mo-
mentum, the British Chiefs of Staff
emerged in clear disagreement with
Eisenhower’s views. On 10 J anuary they
asked formally for a strategy review by
the Combined Chiefs of Staff (U.S. and
British) , under whose direction General
Eisenhower served. In reply to inquiry
5 Ltrs, Eisenhower to Montgomery, 10 and 13 Oct
44 and 1 Dec 44, as cited in Pogue, The Supreme
Command, pp. 297, 314.
Ltr, Eisenher to Montgy, 31 Dec 44, as
cited in Pogue, The Supreme command, p. 409.
P R E L U D E T O V I C T OR Y 5
from General George C. Marshall, Chief
of Staff of the U.S. Army and a member
of the Combined Chiefs, Eisenhower in-
sisted that in order to concentrate a
powerful force north of the Ruhr for the
invasion of Germany, he had to have a
firm defensive line (the Rhine) that
could be held with minimum forces.
Once he had concentrated along the
Rhine, the main thrust would be made
in the north on the north German plain
over terrain conducive to the mobile
warfare in which the Allies excelled. A
secondary thrust was to be made south
of the Ruhr, not in the vicinity of Bonn
and Cologne, as the British wanted, be-
cause the country east of the Rhine there
is tactically unfavorable, but farther
south near Frankfurt, where a terrain
corridor that runs south of the Ardennes
extends across the Rhine through Frank-
furt to Kassel.
Stopping off at Malta en route to top-
level discussions with the eastern ally,
the Soviet Union, the Chiefs of Staff of
the British and American services--
sitting as the Combined Chiefs of Staff-
would on 2 February accept the Supreme
Commander’s plan. They would do so
with the assurance that the main effort
would be made north of the Ruhr and
that this main thrust would not neces-
sarily await clearing the entire west bank
of the Rhine. 7
For all its aspects of finality, this de-
cision was not to end the matter. As
plans for broadening the last offensive
progressed, various ramifications of the
controversy would continue to arise. Yet
for the moment, at least, the air was
clear.
7 For a full discussion of this subject, see Pogue,
The Supreme Command, pp. 409–16.
Allied Versus German Strength
I n returning to the offensive, General
Eisenhower and his Allied command
were dealing from overwhelming
strength. By 3 J anuary 3,724,927 Allied
soldiers had come ashore in western
Europe. 8 They were disposed tactically
in 3 army groups, 9 armies (including
one not yet assigned divisions), 20 corps,
and 73 divisions. Of the divisions, 49
were infantry, 20 armored, and 4 air-
borne. 9 Six tactical air commands and
thousands of medium and heavy bombers
backed up the armies. A highly complex,
technical, and skilled logistical appa-
ratus, recovered at last from the strain
imposed by the pursuit to the German
frontier, rendered support; behind the
U.S. armies, this went by the name of
the Communications Zone. The Allies
would be striking with one of the strong-
est, unquestionably the best-balanced,
military forces of all time.
At first glance German ground
strength available to the Commander in
Chief West (Oberbefehlshaber West) , 10
Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rund-
stedt, appeared equal, even superior, to
that of the Allies, for Rundstedt con-
trolled, nominally, eighty divisions. I n
reality, many of these had been dras-
tically reduced in the fighting. The 26th
8 SHAEF G–3 War Room Daily Summaries, 214-
18. Casualties through 3 J anuary totaled 516,244,
though many of these men had returned to duty.
U.S. forces had incurred 335,090 casualties, includ-
ing 55,184 killed.
9 Twelve divisions were British, 3 Canadian, 1
Polish, 8 French, and 49 American. There were, in
addition, a Polish brigade and contingents of
Dutch, Belgian, and Czechoslovakian troops.
10 Oberbefehlshaber West means either the Com-
mander in Chief West or his headquarters. In this
volume, the abbreviated form, OB WEST, will be
used to refer to the headquarters.
6
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
FIELD MARSHAL VON RUNDSTEDT
Volks Grenadier Division, for example,
which had fought in the Ardennes, had
a “present for duty” (Tagesstaerlze)
strength of 5,202 but a “combat effec-
tive” (Kumpfstaerke) strength of only
1,782; this against a table of organization
calling for approximately 10,000 men.
Nor did the Germans have the trained
replacements to bring units back to full
strength. 11
By contrast, Allied units, despite losses
in the Ardennes and despite a pinch in
American infantry replacements, would
11 OB WEST Wochenmeldungen, 1944–45, # H
22/287. Volks Grenadier was an honorific, selected
to appeal to the pride of the German people, das
Volk, which Hitler accorded to certain infantry
divisions.
quickly be reconstituted. The 28th In-
fantry Division, for example, literally
shattered by the opening blows of the
enemy thrust in December, would be
virtually at full strength again by the
end of J anuary, even though Allied
tables of organization called for from two
to four thousand more men per division
than did German tables. Only the 106th
Infantry Division, which had had two
regiments captured early in the fighting,
would not be returned to full strength.
The German forces opposing the
Western Allies were organized into four
army groups. I n the north, Army Group
H (Generaloberst Kurt Student) held
the line from the Dutch coast to Roer-
mond with the Twenty-fifth and First
Parachute Armies, its boundaries
roughly coterminous with those of the 21
Army Group’s First Canadian and Sec-
ond British Armies. From Roermond
south to the Moselle River near Trier,
including the Ardennes bulge, stood
Army Group B (Generalfeldmarschall
Walter Model) , the strongest-by vir-
ture of having been beefed up for the
Ardennes operation-of the German
army groups. Army Group B controlled
the Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies and
the Seventh and Fifteenth Armies, gen-
erally opposing the First, Third, and
Ninth U.S. Armies. Extending the front
to the northeast corner of France was
Army Group G (Generaloberst J ohannes
Blaskowitz) with only one army, the
First, opposite portions of the Thi rd and
Seventh U.S. Armies. Also controlling
only one army, the Nineteenth, Army
Group Oberrhein (Reichsfuehrer SS
Heinrich Himmler) was responsible for
holding the sector extending south to the
Swiss border and for conducting the
other winter counterblow, Operation
PRELUDE TO VICTORY 7
NORDWI ND, For various reasons,
among them the fact that an exalted
personage of the Nazi party such as
Himmler hardly could submit to the
command of an army leader, Army
Group Oberrhein was tactically inde-
pendent, in effect, a separate theater
command. 12
Unusual command arrangements,
which in this particular case would not
last beyond mid-J anuary, were nothing
new on the German side. The Com-
mander in Chief West himself, for ex-
ample, never had been a supreme
commander in the sense that General
Eisenhower was. The real supreme
commander was back in Berlin, Adolf
Hitler. To reach Hitler, Rundstedt’s
headquarters, OB WEST, had to go
through a central headquarters in Berlin,
the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
(OKW) , which was charged with opera-
tions in all theaters except the east.
(Oberkommando des Heeres–OKH–
watched over the Eastern Front.) J eal-
ousies playing among the Army, Navy,
Luftwaffe (air force), Waffen-SS (mili-
tary arm of the Nazi party), and Nazi
party political appointees further circum-
scribed OB WEST’S authority. 18
There could be no question as to the
overwhelming nature of Allied strength
as compared with what the Germans,
fighting a three-front war, could muster
in the west. Allied superiority in the
west was at least 2½ to 1 in artillery,
12 Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)
Wehrmachtfuehrungsstab ( WFSt) situation maps
for the period: Magna E. Bauer, MS #R-64, The
Western Front in Mid-J anuary 1945, prepared in
OCMH to complement this volume, copy in
OCMH.
13 MSS #T–121, T–122, and T–123, OB WEST,
A Study in Command (Generalleutnant Bodo Zim-
merman, G–3, OB WEST, and other officers).
roughly 10 to 1 in tanks, more than 3 to
1 in aircraft, and 2½ to 1 in troops. Nor
could there be any question that long-
range Allied capabilities also were im-
mensely superior, since much of the great
natural and industrial potential of the
United States was untapped. German
resources in J anuary 1945 still were
considerable nevertheless. If adroitly
handled, some believed, these resources
might enable the Germans to prolong
the war and-should Hitler’s secret
weapons materialize-might even re-
verse the course of the war.
Despite the demands of five years of
war and saturation attacks by Allied
bombers, German production had
reached a peak only in the fall of 1944.
During September 1944, for example,
Germany had produced 4,103 aircraft of
all types. As late as November 1944, the
Luftwaffe had more planes than ever
before—8,103 (not counting transports) ,
of which 5,317 were operational. On
New Year’s Day 1,035 planes had taken
to the air over the Netherlands, Belgium,
and northern France in support of the
Ardennes fighting. Some 25 new sub-
marines-most equipped with a snorkel
underwater breathing device-had been
completed each month through the fall.
Tank and assault gun output would stay
at a steady monthly level of about 1,600
from November 1944 to February 1945. 14
A few newly developed jet-propelled air-
craft already had appeared over the
Western Front. I n light of V–1 flying
bombs and V–2 supersonic missiles that
had for months been bombarding British
and Continental cities, a report that soon
14 Magna E. Bauer, MS #R-61, Effects of the
Ardennes Offensive: Germany‘s Remaining War
Potential, prepared to complement this volume,
annotated copy in OCMH.
8 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
the Germans would possess an inter-
continental missile was not lightly dis-
missed. 15
I n manpower the Germans still had
reserves on which to draw. Of a popula-
tion within prewar boundaries of some
80 million, close to 13 million had been
inducted into the armed forces, of whom
4 million had been killed, wounded, or
captured in five years of war. Yet not
until J anuary 1945 would Hitler decree
that older men up to forty-five years of
age be shifted from industry to the
armed forces. As late as February, eight
new divisions would be created, pri-
marily from youths just turned seven-
teen. As the roles of the Navy and
Luftwaffe declined, substantial numbers
of their men could be transferred to the
Army. 16
To these points on the credit side of
the German ledger would have to be
added the pertinacity of the German
leader, Adolf Hitler. Although shaken by
an attempt on his life in the summer of
1944 and sick from overuse of sedatives,
Hitler in J anuary 1945 still was a man
of dominant personality and undiluted
devotion to the belief that even though
a German military victory might be im-
possible, the war somehow could be
brought to a favorable end. His distrust
of nearly everybody around him had
served to feed his conviction that he
alone was capable of correctly estimating
the future course of the war. He would
tolerate no dissenting voices.
To a varying degree, depending on in-
15 Wesley Frank Craven and J ames Lea Cate, eds.,
“The Army Air Forces in World War II,” III,
Europe: Argument to V- E Day (Chicago: The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1951) (Hereafter cited as
AAF III), 84. 545, and 659.
1 6 MS #R-61 (Bauer).
dividual insight, the German soldiers
and their leaders accepted the promises
and assurances of their Fuehrer that,
given time, political démarches, dissent
among the Allies, even continued con-
ventional military efforts, Germany
could anticipate some kind of salvation.
Given time alone, the Thi rd Reich could
develop new miracle weapons and im-
prove existing weapons so that the
enemy, if he could not be beaten, still
could be forced to compromise, or else
the “Anglo-Saxons,” as Hitler called the
Western Allies, might be persuaded to
join with Germany in the war against
bolshevism. The time to achieve all this
could be gained only by stubborn com-
bat. If some preferred to give up the
fight and surrender, the great majority
would continue the battle with determi-
nation. 17
It is difficult, in retrospect, to compre-
hend how any thinking German could
have believed genuinely in anything
other than defeat as 1945 opened, despite
the credits on the ledger, for entries on
the debit side were almost overwhelming.
North Africa, France, Belgium, Luxem-
bourg, Crete, Russia, much of the Bal-
kans, much of Italy and Poland, parts of
the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Yugo-
slavia, and even East Prussia–all had
been lost, together with the Finnish and
Italian allies. The nation’s three major
industrial regions-the Ruhr, Saar, and
Silesia–lay almost in the shadow of the
guns of either the Western Allies or the
Russians.. The failure in the Ardennes
was all the more disheartening because
so much had been expected of the cam-
paign. The impressive numbers of air-
craft were almost meaningless when
17 Ibid.
P R E L U DE T O V I C T OR Y 9
measured against shortages in trained
pilots and aviation fuel, the latter so
lacking that few new pilots could be
trained. Although Hitler time after time
promised to introduce a fleet of jet-
propelled fighters to set matters right in
the skies, his insistence back in 1943 that
the jet be developed not as a fighter but
as a bomber in order to wreak revenge
on the British had assured such a delay
in jet fighter production that jets would
play only a peripheral role in the war.
Tank and assault gun production fig-
ures also had to be considered against
the background of fuel shortages and a
crippled transportation system that made
it increasingly difficult to get the weapons
from assembly line to front line. An
Allied air offensive against oil and trans-
portation, for example, begun during the
summer of 1944, had had severe reper-
cussions in more than one segment of the
war economy. Shipment of coal by water
and by rail (normally 40 percent of
traffic) had fallen from 7.4 million tons
in August to 2.7 million tons in Decem-
ber. Production in synthetic fuel plants,
responsible for go percent of Germany’s
aviation gasoline and 30 percent of the
nation’s motor gasoline, had dropped
from an average of 359,000 tons in the
four months preceding the attacks to
24,000 tons in September. 18 The atmos-
phere of impending doom was further
heightened by knowledge that even if
the Ardennes fighting did delay another
major Allied offensive for a month or so,
the Russians were readying an all-out
strike that was sure to come, if not in
days then in weeks.
18 The United States Strategic Bombing Survey,
Report 3, European War, The Effects of Strategic
Bombing on the German War Economy, 31 Octo-
ber 1945, pp. 12–13.
Nor was the German Army that stood
in the east, in Italy, and in the west in
any way comparable to the conquering
legions of the early months of the war.
The long, brutal campaign against the
Russians had crippled the Army even be-
fore Allied troops had forced their way
ashore in Normandy. Units that at one
time had boasted of their all-German
“racial purity” were now laced with
Volksdeutsche (“racial Germans” from
border areas of adjacent countries), and
Hilfswillige (auxiliaries recruited from
among Russian prisoners of war), and
physical standards for front-line service
had been sharply relaxed. Many of the
German divisions had only two infantry
regiments of two battalions each, and
some had only two light artillery bat-
talions of two batteries each and one
medium battalion.
The Army faced a further handicap in
the stultifying effect of a long-standing
order from Hitler forbidding any volun-
tary withdrawal. Having apparently
forestalled a disastrous retreat before the
Russian counteroffensive in front of Mos-
cow in the winter of 1941-42 by ordering
that positions be held even when by-
passed or surrounded, Hitler saw a policy
of “hold at all costs” as a panacea for
every tactical situation. Not a single con-
crete pillbox or bunker of the western
border fortifications, the West Wall, was
to be relinquished voluntarily. Hitler
also constantly delayed granting author-
ity for preparing rear defensive positions
lest these serve as a magnet pulling the
troops back.
For all these negative factors, many
Germans continued to believe if not in
victory, then in a kind of nihilistic syl-
logism which said: Quit now, and all is
lost; hold on, and maybe something will
10
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
happen to help-a process of inductive
reasoning that Allied insistence on un-
conditional surrender may not have pro-
moted but did nothing to dissuade.
Already the Germans had demonstrated
amply an ability to absorb punishment,
to improvise, block, mend, feint, delay.
Weapons and Equipment
Making up approximately three-
fourths of the total Allied force engaged
in the last offensive, the American soldier
was perhaps the best-paid and best-fed
soldier of any army up to that time. Ex-
cept for a few items of winter clothing,
he was also as well or better clothed than
any of his allies or his enemy. I n the
matter of armament and combat equip-
ment, American research and production
had served him well. On the other hand,
his adversary possessed, qualitatively at
least, battle-worthy equipment and an
impress ive
The basic shoulder weapon of the
U.S. soldier was the .30-caliber M1
(Garand) rifle, a semiautomatic piece,
while the German soldier employed a
7.92-mm. (Mauser) bolt-action rifle.
Two favorite weapons of the American
were outgrowths of World War I, the
.30-caliber Browning automatic rifle
(BAR) and the .30-caliber Browning
machine gun in both light (air-cooled)
and heavy (water-cooled) models. The
German soldier had no widely used
equivalent of the BAR, depending in-
stead on a machine pistol that the Ameri-
19 A comprehensive study and comparison of
American and German weapons and equipment
will be found in Lida Mayo, The Ordnance De-
partment: On Beachhead and Battlefront, UNITED
STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washing-
ton, 1968).
cans called, from an emetic sound
attributable to a high cyclic rate of fire,
a “burp gun.” The burp gun was similar,
in some respects, to the U.S. Thompson
submachine gun. The standard German
machine gun was the M1942, which had
a similarly high cyclic rate of fire.
I n the two arsenals of antitank weap-
ons, the most effective close-range
weapons were the German one-shot,
shaped-charge piece called a Panzerfaust,
and the American 2.36-inch rocket
launcher, the bazooka. Late in the cam-
paign the Americans would introduce a
new antitank weapon, the recoilless rifle
in 57- and 75-mm. models, but the war
would end before more than a hundred
reached the European theater. The con-
ventional towed 57-mm. antitank gun
most American units at this stage of the
war had come to view as excess baggage;
but in the defensive role in which the
Germans would find themselves, towed
pieces still would be used. I n general,
the basic antitank weapon was the tank
itself or a self-propelled gun, called by
the Americans a tank destroyer, by the
Germans an assault gun. German assault
guns usually were either 76- or 88-mm.
Most American tank destroyers were
M10’s with 3-inch guns, though by No-
vember substantial numbers of M36’s
mounting a high-velocity 90-mm. piece
had begun to arrive. Because the tank
destroyer looked much like a tank, many
commanders tried to employ it as a tank,
but since it lacked heavy armor plate, the
practice often was fatal.
The standard American tank, the M4
Sherman, a 33-ton medium, was rela-
tively obsolescent. Most ‘of the Shermans
still mounted a short-barreled 75-mm.
gun, which repeatedly had proved inca-
P R E L U DE T O V I C T OR Y 11
M4 SHERMAN TANK IN THE ARDENNES
pable of fighting German armor on
equal terms. They plainly were out-
gunned, not necessarily by the enemy’s
medium (Mark IV) tank but unques-
tionably by the 50-ton Mark V (Pan-
ther) and the 54-ton Mark VI (Tiger),
the latter mounting a high-velocity 88-
mm. gun. 20 The Panther and Tiger also
surpassed the Sherman in thickness of
armor and width of tracks.
Although modifications of the M4 had
begun to reach the theater in some quan-
tity in late fall and early winter, most
equipped with a 76-mm. gun, some with
2 0 A souped-up version of the Tiger, called the
King Tiger or Tiger Royal, appeared in small
numbers.
increased armor plate, the old Sherman
remained the basic tank. As late as the
last week of February 1945, for example,
less than one-third of the mediums in the
Ninth Army were equipped with a 76-
mm. piece. The best of the modifications
of the M4 to reach the theater in any
quantity was the M4A3, 76-mm. gun,
Wet Series, familiarly known as the
“J umbo.” Its high-velocity gun had a
muzzle brake, and the tank had a new
suspension system and 23-inch steel
tracks in place of the old 16 9/16-inch rub-
ber block tracks. Neither a radically
designed medium tank (the M26,
mounting a 90-mm. gun) nor a heavy
tank would reach the theater before the
12
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
end of hostilities in other than experi-
mental numbers. 21
The basic German mortars were of 50-
and 81-mm. caliber, comparable to the
American 60- and 81-mm., but the little
50 had fallen into disfavor as too small
to be effective. Unlike the Americans,
the Germans also employed heavier mor-
tars, some up to 380-mm. The Nebel-
werfer, or “Screaming Meemie,” as the
U.S. soldier called it, was a multiple-
barrel 150-mm. mortar or rocket
launcher mounted on wheels and fired
electrically. The Americans had a simi-
lar weapon in the 4.5-inch rocket
launcher.
The most widely used artillery pieces
of both combatants were light and
medium howitzers, German and Ameri-
can models of which were roughly com-
parable in caliber and performance. The
German pieces were gun-howitzers (105-
mm. light and 150-mm. medium); the
American pieces, howitzers (105- and
155-mm.). The German infantry di-
vision, like the American, was supposed
to have four artillery battalions, three
light and one medium. As was standard
practice in the U.S. Army, additional
artillery, some of it of larger caliber, op-
erated under corps and army control.
German artillery doctrine and organi-
zation for the control and delivery of
fire differed materially from the Ameri-
can only in that the German organic
divisional artillery was less well equipped
for communication. Excellent American
communications facilities down to bat-
21 Cole, in The Lorraine Campaign, pages 603–04,
and The Ardennes, pages 651–52, compares charac-
teristics of German and U.S. tanks. See also Con-
stance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and
Peter C. Roots, The Ordnance Department: Plan-
ning Munitions for War, UNI TED STATES ARMY
I N WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1955). ch. X.
M4A3 SHERMAN TANK WITH 76–MM. GUN
tery level and effective operation of fire
direction centers permitted more ac-
curate fire and greater concentration in a
shorter time. Yet the shortcomings of the
enemy in the matter of effective concen-
trations were attributable less to deficien-
cies of doctrine and organization than to
shortages of ammunition and other rav-
ages of war. Except that of the panzer
and panzer grenadier divisions, almost
all German artillery, for example, was at
this stage horse-drawn. 22
Controlling the air, the Americans
could employ with tremendous effect ar-
tillery spotter planes which greatly ex-
tended the effective visual distance of
artillery observers. A simple little mono-
plane (L–4 or L–5), known variously as
22 Charles V. P. von Luttichau, Notes on German
and U.S. Artillery, MS in OCMH; Gen. Hasso von
Manteuffel, comments on draft MS for this volume.
P R E L U DE T O V I C T OR Y 13
a Piper Cub, cub, liaison plane, grass-
hopper, or observation plane, it had
more than proved its worth-particularly
in counterbattery fires-long before the
last offensive began. Although the Ger-
mans had a similar plane-the Storck—
overwhelming Allied air superiority had
practically driven it from the skies.
American artillery also gained a slight
advantage from a supersecret fuze, called
variously the V T (variable time),
POZIT, or proximity fuze, by means of
which artillery shells exploded from ex-
ternal influences in the air close to the
target, an improvement on time fire.
Long employed in antiaircraft fire but
first used by ground artillery during the
defensive phase of the Ardennes fighting,
the fuze was undoubtedly effective,
though the limited extent of its use
could hardly justify extravagant claims
made for it by enthusiastic scientists. 23
Other than tanks, the German weapon
which most impressed the American
soldier was the “88,” an 88-mm. high-
velocity, dual-purpose antiaircraft and
antitank piece. So imbued with respect
for the 88 had the American become
from the fighting in North Africa on-
ward that a shell from almost any high-
velocity German weapon he attributed
to the 88.
I n the vital field of signal communica-
tions, the Americans held an advantage
at tactical levels because of the inroads
battle losses and substitute materials had
made in the German system and because
of widespread American use of frequency
modulation (FM) in radio communica-
tions. Both armies operated on the same
theory of two networks of radio and two
of telephone communications within the
29 Cole, The Ardennes, pp. 655–56.
division, one for infantry or armor, one
for artillery; but at this stage of the war
the German system often failed to reach
as low as company level. By use of sound-
powered telephone, the Americans
gained telephonic communication down
to platoons and even squads. They also
had a good intracompany radio system
with the use of an amplitude modulated
(AM) set, the SCR–536, or handie-
talkie.
I n the offensive, radio usually served as
the communications workhorse in for-
ward areas. Here the Americans held
advantages with the handie-talkie and
with FM. One of the communications
standbys of the war was the SCR–300,
the walkie-talkie, an FM set of commend-
able performance, used primarily at com-
pany and battalion levels. German sets,
all of which were AM, were subject to
interference by the sheer volume of their
own and Allied traffic. Perhaps because
of the lack of intracompany wire or
radio, the Germans used visual signals
such as colored lights and pyrotechnics
more often than did the Americans. 24
The air support which stood behind
the Allied armies was tremendously
powerful. In close support of the
ground troops were six tactical air
commands, but also available for tacti-
cal support were eleven groups of
medium and light bombers (B–26
Marauders, A-20 Havocs, and A-26
Invaders) of the I X U.S. Bomber Com-
mand and other mediums under British
24 For detailed discussion of American and Ger-
man communications, see two volumes in the series,
UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR 11:
George R. Thompson, Dixie R. Harris, Pauline M.
Oakes, and Dulany Terrett, The Signal Corps: The
Test (Washington, 1957). and George R. Thomp-
son and Dixie R. Harris, The Signal Corps: The
Outcome (Washington, 1966).
14
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
control. On occasion, the devastating
heavy bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air
Force and the Royal Air Force Bomber
Command were called in. Not counting
Allied aircraft based in Italy, the Allies
could muster more than 17,500 first-
line combat aircraft, including approxi-
mately 5,000 British aircraft of all types,
6,881 U.S. bombers, and 5,002 U.S.
fighters, plus hundreds of miscellaneous
types for reconnaissance, liaison, and
transport. 25
The tactical air commands were the
British Second Tactical Air Force, in
support of the Second British and First
Canadian Armies; the First French Air
Corps, in support of the First French
Army; and four American forces, the
IX, XI, XIX, and XXIX Tactical Air
Commands, in support, respectively, of
the First, Seventh, Third, and Ninth
Armies. All American tactical support
aircraft–mediums and fighter-bombers
-were a part of the Ninth Air Force
(Maj. Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg).
Like divisions attached to ground
corps and armies, the number of fighter-
bomber groups assigned to tactical air
commands often varied, though the
usual number was six. A group normal-
ly had three squadrons of twenty-five
planes each: P–38’s (Lightnings), P-
47’s (Thunderbolts) , P–51’s (Mus-
tangs), or, in the case of night fighter
groups, P–61’s (Black Widows). The
French used American planes, while the
basic British tactical fighters were roc-
ket-firing Hurricanes and Typhoons.
Requests for air support passed from
the air support officer at division head-
25 Army Air Forces Statistical Digest, World War
II, with supplement, p. 156.
quarters to the G–3 Air Section at army
headquarters for transmission to the
tactical air command, with an air sup-
port officer at corps merely monitoring
the request. Usually set up close to the
army headquarters, the air headquarters
ruled on the feasibility of a mission and
assigned the proper number of aircraft
to it. Since air targets could not always
be anticipated, most divisions had come
to prefer a system of “armed reconnais-
sance flights” in which a group assigned
to the division or corps for the day
checked in by radio directly with the
appropriate air support officer. Thus
the planes could be called in as soon as
a target appeared without the delay in-
volved in forwarding a request through
channels. Requests for support from
mediums had to be approved by the G-
3 Air Section at army group head-
quarters and took appreciably longer. 26
I n the matter of logistics, the pendu-
lum had swung heavily to the Allied
side. Although logistical difficulties had
contributed in large measure to the
Allied bog-down along the German
border in the fall of 1944, opening of
the great port of Antwerp in late
November, plus the use of major ports
in southern France, had speeded re-
covery of the logistical apparatus. Sup-
ply losses in the early Ardennes fighting,
while locally painful, were no problem
in the long run. The Germans, for their
part, had expended carefully hoarded
reserves in the Ardennes. Although they
still derived some benefit from prox-
imity to their sources of supply, they
would find that the traditional advan-
26 Craven and Cate, AAF III, pp. 107–37; The
Ninth Air Force and Its Principal Commands in
the ETO, vol. I, ch. VII, and vol. II, part I .
P R E L U DE T O V I C T OR Y 15
tage of inner lines had lost some of its
effect in the air age. 27
Organization and Command
With the exception of a few new divi-
sions, the American force participating
in the last offensive was experienced in
the ways of battle, a thoroughly profes-
sional force scarcely comparable to the
unseasoned soldiery that had taken the
field even such a short time before as
D-day in Normandy. That the Ameri-
cans had come fully of age had been
amply demonstrated in the stalwart de-
fense of the American soldier against
the surprise onslaught in the Ardennes
and in the swift reaction of the Ameri-
can command.
Having moved three months before
from England, General Eisenhower’s
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expedi-
tionary Force (SHAEF Main) was
established in Versailles with adequate
radio and telephone communications to
all major commands. A small tent and
trailer camp at Gueux, near Reims,
served the Supreme Commander as a
forward headquarters. I n addition to
the three Allied army groups—6th, 12th,
and 21—General Eisenhower exercised
direct command over the First Allied
Airborne Army (Lt. Gen. Lewis H.
Brereton), U.S. and British tactical air
forces, and the Communications Zone
(Lt. Gen. J ohn C. H. Lee). Although
the Allied strategic air forces operated
directly under the Combined Chiefs of
Staff rather than under Eisenhower, the
27 A detailed account of logistics in the European
theater may be found in Roland G. Ruppenthal,
Logistical Support of the Armies I , UNITED
STATES ARMY I N WORLD WAR II (Washing-
ton, 1955), and II (Washington, 1959) .
Supreme Commander had first call
upon them when he required their di-
rect support for ground operations.
The two American army groups rep-
resented, in effect, a new departure in
American military experience in that
the only previous U.S. army group had
existed only briefly near the end of
World War I when General J ohn J .
Pershing had grouped two American
armies under his own command. With
little precedent as a guide, the way the
two army group commanders, Generals
Bradley and Devers, organized their
headquarters and exercised command
reflected much of their own individual
concepts. Although both retained the
usual “G” and Special Staff organiza-
tion, Devers ran his army group with a
staff of only about 600 officers and men,
while Bradley employed double that
number. The numbers told much
about the way each interpreted the role
of the army group commander: Devers
played it loosely, leaving planning main-
ly to his army commanders and author-
izing his staff to seek information at
lower levels and make changes on the
spot. Much as when he had commanded
the First Army, Bradley exercised much
closer control over his army commanders
and employed his staff in intricate,
detailed planning. General Bradley
after the war liked to point out that he
had intimate foreknowledge of every
move of his armies except in one case
when General Patton set out on an
operation that he came to rue. 28
Under the American system, both
army group and army exercised com-
mand and logistical functions, while at
28 Interviews, author with Bradley, 30 J un 67. and
Devers, 7 Dec 67.
16
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
the level of corps the commander was
free of the latter. This system afforded
the corps commander time to concen-
trate on tactical matters and established
the corps as a strong component in the
command structure. Equipped with
modern means of communication and
transportation, the corps commander
had regained a measure of the control
and influence over the actions of his
divisions that the advent of mass armies
and rapid-fire weapons had originally
taken away.
The American division in World
War II reflected an early decision to
keep the army in the field lean, to avoid
duplicating the powerful but ponderous
28,000-man division that had fought in
the trenches with Pershing. The theory
was that if all the engineer, medical,
transport, quartermaster, and other sup-
port troops that were needed to meet
any contingency were an integral part
of the division, not only would the
division be difficult to control and ma-
neuver but many of the troops would
often be idle while awaiting a call on
the specialties for which they were
trained. Better to let infantrymen them-
selves double as drivers, radio operators,
mechanics, and the like, while special-
ized units of heavy artillery, transport,
construction engineers, signalmen, tank
destroyers, tanks, and other support
could be attached as required. The
method had the added virtue of elimi-
nating the need for a variety of special-
ized divisions since infantry divisions
could be tailored by attachments to fit
various requirements.
Because the fighting in Europe posed
an almost constant demand for close-
support firepower and antitank defense,
attachment of a tank and a tank de-
stroyer battalion to the infantry division
became customary, bringing the size of
the division to about 16,000 men.
Similarly, a separate tank destroyer
battalion was nearly always attached to
the armored division.
After a first rush to create a “heavy”
armored division comparable to the
early German panzer division, the U.S.
Army had scaled down the medium
tank strength of the armored division
from 250 to 154 and added more in-
fantry to provide staying power. The
new organization had dispensed with
armored and armored infantry regi-
ments, providing instead battalions that
could be grouped in various “mixes”
under combat commands. While lack-
ing some of the shock power of the old
heavy division, the new formation had
proven flexible, maneuverable, and
fully capable of meeting the German
panzer division of 1944–45 on at least
equal terms. Three of the heavy ar-
mored divisions remained-the 1st in
Italy and the 2d and 3d in Eisenhower’s
command.
The armored division usually oper-
ated in three combat commands, A, B,
and R (Reserve), each built around a
battalion of medium tanks and a bat-
talion of armored infantry, with added
increments of engineers, tank destroy-
ers, medics, and other services plus artil-
lery support commensurate with the
combat command’s assignment. Thus
each combat command was approxi-
mately equal in power and interchange-
able in terms of combat mission, while
in the old heavy division Combat Com-
mands A and B almost always bore the
major assignments since the reserve
consisted usually of some contingent
pulled from either or both of the larger
P R E L U DE T O V I C T OR Y 17
commands to afford the commander a
maneuver or reinforcing element. I n
both type divisions combat commands
usually operated under an arrangement
of two or more “task forces.”
Much like armor with its combat
commands, infantry divisions almost
always employed regimental combat
teams. Each of the division’s three in-
fantry regiments was supported by a
105-mm. howitzer battalion and in-
crements of divisional support troops
while the division’s 155-mm. howitzer
battalion was available for reinforcing
fires as needed.
The corps usually consisted of a
minimum of three divisions-two in-
fantry, one armored. Never did the U.S.
Army employ an armored corps of the
type the Germans used in early break-
throughs in Poland and on the Western
Front, partly because of the antipathy
toward specialization and partly be-
cause the American infantry division
with a high mobility and with attached
tanks and tank destroyers was essentially
the equivalent to the German panzer gren-
adier division. Thus a regular corps was
considerably heavier in armor than the
presence of one armored and two infantry
divisions might otherwise indicate. The
only specialized U.S. corps was the XVIII
Airborne Corps, which like U.S. airborne
divisions was destined to spend more time
in straight ground combat than in its spe-
cialized role.
Heading this American force in
Europe was a group of senior com-
manders who had come to know each
other intimately during the lean years
of the small peacetime Army and who
all had absorbed the same doctrinal
concepts from the service schools and
the Command and General Staff Col-
lege. General Eisenhower and two of
his top American subordinates, Bradley
and Patton, had been closely associated
in battle since the campaign in North
Africa, and Lt. Gen. Courtney H.
Hodges of the First Army, who had
come to France as Bradley’s deputy in
the First Army, and Lt. Gen. William H.
Simpson of the Ninth Army had devel-
oped a close command association with
the others through the fighting of the
fall and early winter. General Devers
and his one American army commander,
Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch of the
Seventh Army, were less fully integrated
in the command team, partly because
they had entered the fight separately by
way of southern France rather than Nor-
mandy, partly because they functioned
in a supporting role on a flank and thus
commanded less direct attention from
the Supreme Commander, and partly be-
cause General Devers had not been
Eisenhower’s selection but that of the
Chief of Staff, General Marshall, and
Patch had been Dever’s choice. Yet the
military schooling and experience of
these two was much the same as that of
the others, and the fall and early winter
campaigns had already produced a
strong measure of understanding.
A potentially divisive element was
present in the American command in
the person of the Third Army com-
mander, General Patton. A charismatic
leader, Patton was also impetuous and
had come close on several occasions to
summary relief. While General Eisen-
hower had in each case decided finally
against that discipline, Patton had sorely
tried his patience, and as a result of
slapping incidents involving two hos-
pitalized soldiers in Sicily, he had
18 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
vowed never to elevate Patton above
army command. Respecting Bradley,
Patton had agreed without rancor to
serve under Bradley, one who in North
Africa and Sicily had been his subordi-
nate. Aware that Patton was impetuous
and that grim, slugging warfare tried his
thin patience, Eisenhower and Bradley
kept a close rein on the Third Army
commander but so unobtrusively that
Patton himself often thought he was
putting things over on his superiors
when actually they were fully informed.
Aware also of Patton’s superior abilities
in more fluid warfare, Eisenhower and
Bradley consciously loosened their hold
on the rein when breakthrough and pur-
suit were the order of the day. 29
I n the over-all command structure,
two other potentially abrasive elements
were present in the persons of the 21
Army Group commander, Field Mar-
shal Montgomery, and the First French
Army commander, General J ean de
Lattre de Tassigny. Although Mont-
gomery and de Lattre commanded
forces considerably smaller than those
fielded by the Americans, each was a
dominant personality and as the senior
field representative of one of the major
allies sought a strong voice in command
deliberations. Nor was either reluctant
in the face of controversy to call in the
persuasive force of his head of state.
Terrain and the Front Line
At the closest point, the Allied front
line in early J anuary was some twenty-
five miles from the Ruhr industrial
area. Although Berlin, the political
heart of Germany, might constitute the
29 Interviews, author with Eisenhower, 23 J un 67;
Bradley, 30 J un 67; and Devers, 7 Dec 67.
final objective of the Allied armies, the
Ruhr with its coal mines, blast furnaces,
and factories, the muscle with which
Germany waged war, was the more vital
objective. Without the Ruhr, Ger-
many’s case would fast become hopeless;
taking Berlin and all other objectives
then would be but a matter of time. 30
No political or geographical entity,
the Ruhr can be fairly accurately de-
scribed as a triangle with its base along
the east bank of the Rhine River from
Cologne northward to Duisburg, a dis-
tance of some thirty-five miles. One
side of the triangle extends eastward
from Duisburg along the Lippe River
to Dortmund, for thirty-five to forty
miles; the other side about the same dis-
tance southwestward from Dortmund to
the vicinity of Cologne along the Ruhr
River. The region embraces major
cities such as Essen, Duesseldorf, and
Wuppertal.
The trace of the front line in early
J anuary clearly reflected Allied preoc-
cupation with the Ruhr as an objective
and General Eisenhower’s broad-front
strategy, plus the accident of the Ar-
dennes counteroffensive. Starting at the
Dutch islands of Noord Beveland and
Tholen, the line followed the Maas and
Waal Rivers eastward to Nijmegen,
where the Allies maintained a small
bridgehead north of the Waal, thence
southward along the west bank of the
Maas to Maeseyck. There the line
turned southeastward across the Maas
to reach the Roer River near Heinsberg,
thence south and southwestward to the
headwaters of the Roer at Monschau.
The sector along the Roer–some forty
30 SHAEF Planning Staff, Post-NEPTUNE Courses
of Action After Capture of Lodgment Area,
SHAEF SGS file, 381, I.
P R E L U DE T O V I C T OR Y 19
miles long-represented the only major
breach of the West Wall fortifications.
At Monschau began what was left
of the Ardennes bulge. The line ran
sharply southwest as far as Marche,
some forty miles west of the German
frontier, thence southeast to rejoin the
frontier a few miles northwest of Trier.
It then followed the Moselle River to
the southern border of Luxembourg,
there to swing east and parallel the
Franco-German border to the vicinity
of Sarreguemines. From there to Gamb-
sheim on the west bank of the Rhine a
few miles north of Strasbourg the front
was in a state of flux as a result of the
NORDWIND counteroffensive. A few
miles south of Strasbourg, it again
veered west to encompass a portion of
Alsace still held by the Germans, called
by Allied soldiers the Colmar pocket.
The front line reached the Rhine again
east of Mulhouse and followed the river
to the Swiss border.
The terrain immediately in front of
the Allied positions could be divided
into four general classifications: the
flatlands of the Netherlands and the
Cologne plain, crisscrossed by waterways
and studded with towns and villages;
the Ardennes-Eifel, a high plateau so
deeply cut by erosion that it appears
mountainous; the Saar-Palatinate, an-
other plateau, sprinkled with coal mines
and steel processing plants, separated
from the Ardennes-Eifel by the trench
of the Moselle; and the Vosges Moun-
tains-Black Forest massif, two sharply
defined mountain regions belonging to
the same geological age but separated
by the trench of the Rhine.
The flatlands in the north were the
responsibility of the First Canadian
Army (Lt. Gen. Henry D. G. Crerar),
the Second British Army (Lt. Gen. Sir
Miles C. Dempsey) , and the Ninth U.S.
Army (General Simpson) . Soon after
the Germans had struck in the Ar-
dennes, the Ninth Army had extended
its boundary southward to encompass
much of the area originally held by the
First U.S. Army, so that the boundary
ran in the vicinity of Monschau. With
the exception of the western portion of
the Netherlands, where canals, rivers,
dikes, and deep drainage ditches sharply
compartment the land, this region of-
fered the best route to the primary Allied
objective, the Ruhr. The Ninth Army
might strike directly toward the western
base of the Ruhr, while the British and
Canadians crossed the Rhine and gained
access to the north German plain, there-
by outflanking the Ruhr and at the
same time opening a way toward Berlin.
The Ardennes-Eifel, with its high
ridges, deep-cut, serpentine streams,
and dense forests, had never been tested
by an army moving against opposition
from west to east except during Septem-
ber 1944, when an American corps had
pushed as far as the German frontier.
Even should the Allies elect to avoid the
Eifel as a route of major advance, that
portion of the high plateau known as
the Ardennes still would have to be
cleared of the enemy. The responsibility
belonged to General Hodges’ First
Army, operating temporarily under the
21 Army Group, and the Third Army
(General Patton).
The Third Army’s sector, some of
which upon the start of the Ardennes
counteroffensive had been relinquished
to the adjacent Seventh U.S. Army
(General Patch), included, in addition
to the Ardennes, a small portion of the
line facing the Saar-Palatinate. This
20 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
included the trough of the Moselle, a
poor route of advance because it is
narrow and meandering. That part of
the Saar-Palatinate most open to attack
lay opposite the Seventh Army from
Saarlautern southeastward to the Rhine
and encompassed two corridors leading
northeast that have seen frequent use
in wartime. Separated by a minor moun-
tain chain called the Haardt, these are
known usually as the Kaiserslautern and
Wissembourg Gaps. Both lead to the
Rhine near Mainz, where, after con-
verging, they continue as one past
Frankfurt to Kassel.
That part of the Allied line touching
the Rhine—from Gambsheim to a point
above Strasbourg—was the responsibil-
ity of the First French Army (General
de Lattre). From the vicinity of Stras-
bourg the French line swung southwest
into the most rugged terrain on the
Western Front, the high Vosges Moun-
tains. Rising almost like a wall from the
Alsatian Plain, the Vosges reach a height
of almost 5,000 feet and in winter are
covered with deep snows. I n the Vosges
and on the plain, the German-held
Colmar pocket measured on its periph-
ery about 130 miles. Even after clearing
this pocket, the French would face ter-
rain hardly less formidable; just across
the Rhine stands the Schwarzwald, or
Black Forest, which guards Germany
much as the Vosges protect France.
All along the front, with the excep-
tion of the Maas-Waal line in the
Netherlands and the 40-mile gap along
the Roer, the Germans drew strength
from their concrete border fortifications,
the West Wall. Construction of this
fortified line had begun in 1936, first to
counter France’s Maginot Line opposite
the Saar, subsequently to protect almost
the full length of Germany’s western
frontier. No thin line of elaborate, self-
contained forts like the Maginot Line,
the West Wall was a series of more than
3,000 relatively small, mutually sup-
porting pillboxes or blockhouses ar-
ranged in one or two bands, depending
on the critical nature of the terrain.
Either natural antitank obstacles such
as rivers or monolithic concrete projec-
tions called dragon’s teeth ran in front
of the pillboxes. The strongest sectors
of the line were around Aachen—al-
ready breached—and in front of the
Saar. Based on the principle of delaying
an attacker, then ejecting him with mo-
bile reserves, the West Wall by 1945
had lost much of its effectiveness, both
from a lack of reserves and from the fact
that many of the emplacements could
not accommodate contemporary weap-
ons. Yet as many an Allied soldier al-
ready had learned, concrete in almost
any form can lend real substance to a
defense. 31
Before the entire Allied front would
rest on reasonably economical natural
obstacles, and thus before the last offen-
sive could develop in full force, four
matters of unfinished business in addi-
tion to reconquest of the Ardennes re-
mained to be dealt with. First, the
enemy’s second winter counteroffensive,
which had started on New Year’s Eve in
Alsace, would have to be contained and
any gains wiped out. Second, the ene-
my’s hold-out position around Colmar
would have to be erased. Third, the
Germans would have to be driven from
an angle formed by confluence of the
Saar and Moselle Rivers, known as the
Saar-Moselle triangle. And fourth, an-
31 For a detailed description of the West Wall,
see MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign.
P R E L U DE T O V I C T OR Y 21
other hold-out position in the north in
an angle formed by juncture of the Roer
and Maas Rivers, a so-called Heinsberg
pocket, would have to be eliminated.
Execution of the first two tasks, both
in Alsace, would so occupy the Seventh
U.S. and First French Armies, operating
under General Devers’s 6th Army
Group, all through J anuary and Febru-
ary that only in March would these two
armies be able to join the final drive. 32
Elimination of the Saar-Moselle tri-
angle, on the other hand, the Third
Army would accomplish as a logical ex-
32 Smith, The Riviera to the Rhine.
pansion of its developing role in the last
offensive. Meanwhile, the British would
eliminate the Heinsberg pocket before
their assignment in the last offensive
came due.
Thus the birth of the last offensive
occurred in J anuary in the Ardennes.
There the First Army at last could strike
back at the forces that had hit without
warning in December, and there the
Third Army might reorient its opera-
tions away from the local objective of
succoring Bastogne to the broader as-
signment of pushing in the bulge and
driving to the Rhine.
CHAPTER II
Victory in the Ardennes
“If you go into that death-trap of the
Ardennes,” General Charles Louis Marie
Lanzerac reputedly told a fellow French
officer in 1914, “you will never come
out.” 1 This remark for a long time
typified the attitude of the French and
their allies toward the Ardennes. I t was
a region to be avoided.
For centuries before 1914, warfare,
like commerce, had skirted the Ar-
dennes to north or south; yet at the start
of the Great War, Helmuth von Moltke,
under influence of the Schlieffen Plan,
had sent three armies totaling almost a
million men directly through the Ar-
dennes. Although not constituting the
German main effort, these armies con-
tributed to it by outflanking hasty Allied
attempts to form a line against the main
blow on the Belgian plain. In 1940,
expecting a repetition of the 1914
maneuver, the French had entrusted
defense of the Ardennes to reserve divi-
sions while concentrating their battle-
worthy forces across the gateway to the
plain. That had led to breakthrough by
panzer columns at Sedan and Dinant.
Although made against scattered op-
position consisting sometimes of nothing
more imposing than horse cavalry, these
speedy German conquests tended to
1 For details on the military history and terrain
of the Ardennes, see Charles B. MacDonald, “The
Neglected Ardennes,” Mi l i t ary Review, Vol. 43, No.
4 (April 1963) PP. 74–89.
obscure the fact that the Ardennes is a
major barrier presenting the most rug-
ged face of any terrain from the Vosges
Mountains to the North Sea. While the
highest elevations are less than 2,500
feet above sea level, deep and meander-
ing defiles cut by myriad creeks and
small rivers sharply restrict and canalize
movement either along or across the
grain of the land. ( Map II)
Properly a part of a vast, high plateau
lying mostly inside Germany, the Ar-
dennes and its contiguous region, the
Eifel, are separated from the rest of the
plateau by the accidents of the Moselle
and Rhine Rivers. The Ardennes and
Eifel are divided only by the artificial
barrier of an international frontier. It
was back across this frontier into the
casemates of the West Wall and the for-
ests cloaking them that the Allies had to
drive the Germans before victory in the
Ardennes might be consummated and
the final offensive in Europe begun in
earnest.
The Ardennes encompasses all the
grand duchy of Luxembourg, that part of
southern and eastern Belgium bounded
on the west and north by the gorge of
the Meuse River, and a small portion
of northern France. I t can be divided
into two unequal parts, the smaller Low
Ardennes in the northwest, into which
the winter counteroffensive had achieved
only minor penetration, and the High
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 23
or True Ardennes in the northeast,
center, and south, covering some three-
fourths of the entire region.
Stretching westward from the German
frontier in something of the shape of an
isosceles triangle, the High Ardennes
encompasses in its northern angle a
marshy ridgeline near Spa and Malmédy
called the Hohe Venn or Hautes Fanges,
meaning high marshland. The highest
point in the Ardennes is here (2,276
feet). Southwest of the Hohe Venn along
the northwestern edge of the triangle is
another stretch of high, marshy ground
containing the headwaters of three pic-
turesque rivers, the Plateau des Tailles.
The central portion of the triangle,
around Bastogne and Neufchâteau, is
high but less sharply incised than other
portions. I n the southwestern corner
stands the Forêt des Ardennes, or Ar-
dennes Forest, a name which Americans
with a penchant for generalized inaccu-
racy gave to the entire region of the
Ardennes. Across the border in Luxem-
bourg lies sharply convoluted terrain
that the natives with an eye toward tour-
ism call la Petite Suisse or Little Swit-
zerland.
A picture-postcard pastoral region
marked by few towns with populations
of more than a few thousand, the
Ardennes nevertheless has an extensive
network of improved roads knotted to-
gether at critical points such as Bas-
tope and St. Vith, the latter in the
northeast close to the German border.
Like the general lay of the land, the
major roads favor military movement
from northeast to southwest, or the re-
verse. By holding fast in front of the
Hohe Venn, American troops in De-
cember 1944 had denied the Germans
roads in the north with more favorable
orientation toward the German goal of
Antwerp, forcing them into an all-out
fight for Bastogne and roads emanating
from that town to the northwest. As the
Americans headed back toward the Ger-
man frontier, the orientation of the
roadnet would afford some advantage.
I n plunging out of the Eifel, the Ger-
mans had attained their deepest pene-
tration on Christmas Eve when armored
spearheads got within four miles of the
Meuse River. The bulge i n American
lines reached a maximum depth of not
quite sixty miles. At the base, the bulge
extended from near Monschau in the
north to the vicinity of Echternach in
the south, just under fifty miles. It en-
compassed much of Little Switzerland,
the Plateau des Tailles, and some of the
more open highland around Bastogne;
but it fell short of the two vital objec-
tives, the Meuse and the Hohe Venn.
American offensive reaction to the
German blow had begun even before the
penetration reached its high-water mark.
As early as dawn of 22 December one
division of the Third Army had opened
limited objective attacks to stabilize the
southern shoulder of the bulge near its
base while an entire corps began a drive
toward Bastogne. On Christmas Day an
armored division of the First Army had
wiped out the spearhead near the Meuse.
As General Eisenhower on 19 Decem-
ber had met with his top subordinates to
plan opening countermoves, the obvious
method was to attack simultaneously
from north and south to saw off the pene-
tration at its base close along the Ger-
man border; but several considerations
denied this approach. Still heavily in-
volved trying to prevent expansion of
the bulge to north and northwest, the
First Army was in no position yet to hit
24
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
the northern flank. Nor could the Third
Army, which had to provide the troops
for striking the southern flank, make
available immediately enough divisions
to do more than stabilize the southern
flank and possibly relieve Bastogne. Be-
cause Bastogne was the key to the road-
net not only to the northwest but to
southwest and south as well, and since
nobody knew for sure at the time which
way the Germans wanted to go, the need
to hold Bastogne never came into ques-
tion. 2
This early commitment to relieving
and reinforcing Bastogne in large meas-
ure dictated the way the Allied command
would go about eliminating the penetra-
tion, a drive to squeeze the bulge at its
waist rather than its base, then a turn to
push in what was left. I t was a conserva-
tive approach but one necessitated, at
least in the opening moves, by the sur-
prise, early success, and persisting
strength of the German assault.
Yet once Bastogne was relieved on the
26th, the way was open for another solu-
tion, the classic though venturesome
maneuver for eliminating a deep pene-
tration, cutting it off at its base. This the
Third Army commander, General Pat-
ton, proposed, a drive by his army north
and northeast from Luxembourg City
into a westward-protruding portion of
the Eifel to link with a complementary
thrust by the First Army in the vicinity
of Pruem, a road center a little over ten
miles inside Germany, southeast of St.
Vith. 3
Although Patton’s opposite on the
2 For an account of early decisions, see Cole, The
Ardennes, pp. 487–88, 509–10.
3 Cole, The Ardennes, pp. 610–13, provides a de-
tailed discussion of the deliberations. See also
Pogue, The Supreme Command, pp. 383, 393.
north flank, General Hodges of the First
Army, agreed with this approach in prin-
ciple, he advised against it because he
deemed the roadnet close to the border
in the north inadequate to sustain the
large force, heavy in armor, that would
be necessary for the cleaving blow essen-
tial to a successful amputation. Nor did
the 12th Army Group commander, Gen-
eral Bradley, endorse it. Bradley was
concerned about the effect of winter
weather, both on the counterattack itself
and on air support, and of the inhos-
pitable terrain. He was worried too
about a lack of reserves. Already the 6th
Army Group had extended its lines dan-
gerously to release the bulk of the Third
Army for the fight in the Ardennes.
Although the matter of reserves might
have been remedied by greater commit-
ment of British troops, the British com-
mander who also controlled the First
U.S. Army, Field Marshal Montgomery,
wanted to avoid major realignment of
British forces lest it unduly delay return
to the scheduled main effort in the north
against the Ruhr.
On 28 December General Eisenhower
met with Montgomery to plot the role
of the First Army in the offensive. Al-
ready in hand was General Bradley’s
view that the Third Army should strike
not at the base of the bulge but from
Bastogne generally northeast toward St.
Vith. As formulated after earlier conver-
sations with General Hodges and corps
commanders of the First Army, Mont-
gomery’s decision was for the First Army
to link with the Third Army at Houf-
falize, nine miles northeast of Bastogne,
then broaden the attack to drive gener-
ally east on St. Vith. Noting that he was
moving British units against the tip of
the bulge to assist the First Army to con-
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 25
centrate, Montgomery indicated that the
attack was to begin within a day or two
of the New Year.
As the old year neared an end and the
two American armies prepared their of-
fensives, this was the picture around the
periphery of the German penetration:
From a point north of Monschau
marking the boundary between the First
and Ninth Armies, the sector of the V
Corps (Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow)
extended southward as far as Elsenborn,
thereby encompassing high ground serv-
ing as an outpost for the Hohe Venn,
then swung west along a deep-cut creek
to Waimes, where V Corps responsibility
yielded to the XVIII Airborne Corps
(Maj. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway) . The
line continued to follow the creek
through Malmédy to Stavelot, thence
along the Ambleve River for a mile or
two to Trois Ponts. At that point, the
forward trace extended cross-country to
the southwest along no clearly defined
feature. Where it cut across the Lienne
River near Bra, the sector of the VII
Corps (Maj. Gen. J . Lawton Collins)
began. The VII Corps line extended
southwest across the Bastogne-Liège
highway to the Ourthe River near
Hotton.
The Ourthe was, temporarily, the
First Army’s right boundary. On the
other side Field Marshal Montgomery
had inserted under his direct command
contingents of the 30 British Corps. Run-
ning from the Meuse south of Dinant
generally eastward to Houffalize, the
boundary between the 21 and 12th Army
Groups split the bulge roughly in half.
From the army group boundary south-
east to St. Hubert, fifteen miles west of
Bastogne, no formal line existed. Patrols
of an American regiment hard hit early
in the fighting, a reconnaissance squad-
ron, and a French parachute battalion
covered the sector, while a fresh Ameri-
can airborne division backed it up from
positions along the Meuse. The sector
was part of the responsibility of the VI I I
Corps (Maj. Gen. Troy H. Middleton),
the corps that had been hardest hit by
the opening blows of the counteroffen-
sive. Serving at this point under the
Third Army, the main body of the VI I I
Corps was located between St. Hubert
and Bastogne.
I n the sector of the VI I I Corps, at
Bastogne itself, and southeast of the
town, the front was in a state of flux be-
cause here General Patton had begun
opening moves in his part of the offen-
sive two days before the New Year.
Charged with reaching the First Army
at Houffalize, the VIII Corps was to pass
to the west of Bastogne, then swing
northeast on Houffalize. East and south-
east of Bastogne, the I I I Corps (Maj.
Gen. J ohn Millikin) was to broaden to
the east the corridor its armor had forged
into the town, then continue northeast
toward St. Vith. Holding the south flank
of the bulge generally along the Sûre
River east to the German border, the
XI I Corps (Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy)
was to join the offensive later. 4
That these opening blows by the
Third Army collided head on with a
major German effort to sever the corri-
dor into Bastogne, again encircle the
town, and take it, contributed to the
fluid situation prevailing there. Night
was falling on the second day of the new
year before the Americans around Bas-
togne could claim that they had parried
4 A detailed account of the first four days of the
Third Amy’s offensive is provided in Cole, The
Ardennes, ch. XXIV.
26 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
what would turn out to be the stronger
of two final German blows aimed at
seizing the town.
German dispositions within the bulge
reflected the broad pattern shaped by
early stages of the counteroffensive, plus
the recent emphasis on taking Bastogne.
Three infantry divisions on the south
wing of the Fifteenth Army (General der
Infanterie Gustav von Zangen) opposed
the V Corps in the angle at the northern
base of the bulge. The Sixth Panzer
Army (Generaloberst der Waffen-SS
Josef “Sepp” Dietrich) , comprising six
divisions, opposed the XVIII Airborne
Corps and the VII Corps. Opposite the
British in the tip of the bulge and part
of the VI I I Corps were contingents of
three divisions of the Fifth Panzer Army
(General der Panzertruppen Hasso von
Manteuffel) , while as a result of the ef-
forts to capture Bastogne the bulk of
that army-nine other divisions and a
special armored brigade-was concen-
trated around Bastogne and to the south-
east of the town. The remainder of the
southern flank was the responsibility of
the Seventh Army (General der Panzer-
truppen Erich Brandenberger) , whose
five divisions and several separate units
of battalion or Kumpfgruppe (task
force) size extended the line to the
border near Echternach and southward
along the frontier as far as the Moselle. 5
The First Army’s Attack
As finally determined by Field Mar-
shal Montgomery, the First Army’s attack
was to begin on 3 J anuary. Since the
troops around Bastogne had stopped a
major German effort to take that town
5 Situation Map, OKW/WFSt Op ( H) West (3).
4 J an 45.
late on 2 J anuary, the Third Army might
be able to renew its offensive in earnest
on the same day.
A veteran force that had come ashore
on the beaches of Normandy, liberated
Paris, and penetrated the West Wall
around Aachen, the First Army on the
eve of resuming the offensive contained
thirteen divisions. Included were three
armored divisions, one of which had
been badly mauled in a heroic defense
of St. Vith and two of which had given
as good as they took in later stages of the
Ardennes fight. These two were old-style
heavy divisions, the 2d and 3d. A loan of
200 British Shermans had helped replace
tank losses incurred in the December
fighting, and all except a few files had
been filled in infantry ranks.
A calm-almost taciturn-infantry-
man, General Hodges had assumed com-
mand of the First Army in Normandy
when General Bradley had moved up to
army group. Shaken in the early days of
the counteroffensive by what had hap-
pened to his troops, Hodges had come
back strong in a manner that drew praise
from his British superior, Montgomery.
Reflecting both Bradley’s interest and his
own, Hodges’ staff was heavy on infantry-
men, including the chief of staff, Maj.
Gen. William G. Kean. Two of the three
corps commanders then under the army,
Generals Gerow and Collins, had long
been members of the First Army’s team,
and both enjoyed a close rapport with
Hodges.
The burden of the First Army’s attack
was to fall on General Collins’s VII
Corps, which Montgomery had been
carefully hoarding since early in the
counteroffensive for just such a role.
General Hodges directed this corps to ad-
vance generally southeast between the
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES
27
Ourthe and Lienne Rivers to seize for-
ward slopes of the high marshland of
the Plateau des Tailles, which command
the town of Houffalize. General Ridg-
way’s XVIII Airborne Corps meanwhile
was to advance its right flank to conform
with progress of the VII Corps while
Gerow’s V Corps held in place. Parts of
two British divisions were to push in the
bulge from the west, eventually to be
pinched out short of Houffalize by the
converging First and Third Armies. 6
Heavily reinforced, the VII Corps con-
tained almost a hundred thousand men,
including the two armored divisions,
three infantry divisions, and twelve field
artillery battalions in addition to divi-
sional artillery. Each infantry division
had the normal attachments of a medi-
um tank battalion and a tank destroyer
bat tal ion.
Two of the infantry divisions, the 75th
and 84th, held a 14-mile corps front ex-
tending from the vicinity of Bra south-
westward to the Ourthe near Hotton. In
an attempt to trap those German troops
still in the tip of the bulge, General Col-
lins planned to open the attack with his
two powerful armored divisions in hope
of a swift penetration across the high
marshland to his objective twelve miles
to the southeast. As the armor passed
through the infantry line, the 84th Di-
vision was to follow the 2d Armored
Division to mop up while the 83d In-
fantry Division did the same for the 3d
Armored. The 75th Division was to pass
into corps reserve.’
The estimate of the enemy situation
6 FUSA Ltr of Instrs, 1 J an 45, FUSA Ltrs of In-
strs file, J an 45; First Army Rpt of Opns, 1 Aug
44–22 Feb 45, pp. 126–27.
7 VII Corps FO 14, 2 J an 45, VII Corps FO file,
J an 45.
GENERAL HODGES
by the VII Corps G–2, Col. Leslie D.
Carter, was basically correct. First con-
cern of the Germans, Colonel Carter
believed, was Bastogne. Until the south
flank could be stabilized there, the Ger-
mans to the west were liable to entrap-
ment. A number of divisions that earlier
had fought the VII Corps had moved
south to help at Bastogne, their de-
parture leaving Si xt h Panzer Army a
blunted residue of what had once been
the steel skewer of the counteroffensive.
Of the panzer army’s six remaining di-
visions, three under the II SS Panzer
Corps (General der Waffen-SS Willi
Bittrich) confronted the VII Corps: the
12th Vol ks Grenadier Division opposite
the left wing of the corps, the 560th
Volks Grenadier Division in the center,
and the 2d SS Panzer Division opposite
the right wing. First-line German units,
28
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
these divisions had taken sizable losses
during the counteroffensive: strengths
varied from 2,500 men in the 560th to
6,000 in the panzer division. Preoccupa-
tion with the Bastogne sector and with
the new counteroffensive ( NORD-
WI ND) in Alsace would restrict se-
verely, Colonel Carter noted, the reserves
that might oppose the American attack. 8
What Colonel Carter could not know
was that on the very eve of the First
Army's attacks, German field command-
ers were conceding defeat, not only in
terms of the broad objectives of the
counteroffensive, which as early as
Christmas Eve they had come to accept,
but also of the limited objective of taking
Bastogne. The failure to sever the
American corridor to Bastogne had con-
vinced the commander of the Fifth Pan-
zer Army, General von Manteuffel, that
the time had come to abandon all
thought of continuing the offensive in
the Ardennes. Lest the troops farthest
west be trapped, Manteuffel appealed
late on 2 J anuary to Field Marshal
Model, commander of Army Group B,
for permission to pull back to a line an-
chored on Houffalize.
Although Model apparently agreed
professionally with Manteuffel, he was
powerless to act because of Hitler's long-
professed decree that no commander give
up ground voluntarily unless Hitler him-
self endorsed the move in advance, some-
thing that seldom happened. Since the
unsuccessful attempt on his life the pre-
ceding J uly, the Fuehrer had come to
accept any indication of withdrawal as
8 VII Corps Annex 2 to FO 14 and Incl 1, VII
Corps FO file, J an 45; MS #A-924, Operation of
Sixth Panzer Army, 1944–45 (Generalmajor der
Waffen-SS Fritz Kraemer, CofS, Sixth Panzer
Army).
evidence of defeatism, even treason.
Model and even the Commander i n
Chief West, Field Marshal von Rund-
stedt, had to live with the fiction that
nobody ever withdrew.
Even though Hitler himself the next
day, 3 J anuary, would issue his qualified
admission of failure under the original
concept in the Ardennes, he had arrived
by this time at definite ideas of how the
salient still might be turned to German
advantage, and withdrawal had no part
in the plan. Taking Bastogne did. De-
spite the failure of the latest attempt,
Model and his staff at Army Group B
were compelled to continue planning for
yet another attack on Bastogne, this to
begin on 4 J anuary. 9
As the hour for American attack
neared, the weather augury was anything
but encouraging. It was bitterly cold.
The ground was frozen and covered with
snow. Roads were icy. A low, foglike
overcast so restricted visibility that
planned support from fighter-bombers of
the I X Tactical Air Command (Maj.
Gen. Elwood R. Quesada) was hardly to
be assured. Yet since hope of improve-
ment in the weather was dim, the attack
was to proceed. Top commanders in the
First Army had for some time been
chafing to shift to the offensive lest the
Third Army be called upon to do it all,
and delay would give the Germans in the
tip of the bulge that much more time
to escape. 10
9 German material is from Cole, The Ardennes,
pp. 647–48. See also MS #A-858, The Course of
Events of the German Offensive in the Ardennes,
16 Dec 1944–14 J an 1945 (Maj. Percy E. Schramm,
keeper of the OKW/WFSt War Diary).
10 VII Corps AAR, J an 45; Ltr, Bradley to
Hodges, 26 Dec 44, 12th AGp 371.3, Military Objec-
tives, vol. IV; Diary of Maj. William C. Sylvan,
aide-de-camp to Gen Hodges (hereafter cited as
Sylvan Diary), entry of 2 J an 45, copy in OCMH.
V I CT ORY I N T HE A RDENNES 29
Stretching all the way across the zone
of attack of the VII Corps, the high
marshes of the Plateau des Tailles added
a third dimension to the obstacles of
woods and deep-cut streambeds that are
common in the Ardennes, thus making
the roadnet the number one tactical ob-
jective. Only one major road, the Liège-
Houffalize-Bastogne highway, led di-
rectly to any part of the objective. A web
of secondary roads connecting the vil-
lages i n the region would have to serve
as main avenues of advance despite
numerous bridges, defiles, and hairpin
turns.
Preoccupation with roads was appar-
ent from the first objectives assigned the
armored divisions. Both were to aim at
high ground commanding roads leading
approximately four miles to the south-
east to the La Roche-Salmchâteau high-
way, a lateral route from which a number
of local roads in addition to the Liège-
Bastogne highway provide access to the
forward slopes of the Plateau des Tailles.
On the left the 3d Armored Division
(Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose) would have
only one road at the start, while on the
right the 2d Armored Division (Maj.
Gen. Ernest N. Harmon) could employ
both the main highway leading to Houf-
falize and a secondary route to the
southwest. Cutting the lateral La Roche-
Salmchâteau highway would eliminate
one of only two escape routes left in this
sector to the Germans still standing to
the west. Seizing the high ground over-
looking Houffalize would eliminate the
other. 11
Hardly had the van of the armor
passed through the infantry line early on
11 Unless otherwise noted, the tactical story is
based on the field orders, after action reports, and
journals of the VII Corps and subordinate units.
GENERAL COLLINS
3 J anuary when the hostile weather and
terrain began to have effect. So foggy was
the atmosphere that not a single tactical
plane could support the attack at any
time during the day. Observation by ar-
tillery planes was possible for no more
than an hour. It was a pattern that would
undergo little change for the next fort-
night. On only one day in two weeks
would visibility allow tactical aircraft to
operate all day; on only two other days
would fighter-bombers be able to take to
the air at all.
Much of the time infantry and armor
advanced through snow flurries inter-
spersed with light rain on a few occasions
when temperatures rose above freezing.
During late afternoon and evening of 7
J anuary, a heavy snowfall added several
inches to the cover already on the
ground. Drifts piled in some places to a
depth of three to four feet.
On the first day, the enemy from his
30
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
GENERAL VON MANTEUFFEL
outposts offered relatively light resist-
ance, though antitank minefields hidden
by the snow caused several delays and in
late afternoon a force of infantry sup-
ported by from six to ten tanks of the 2d
SS Panzer Division counterattacked for-
ward units on the right wing. On the
next and succeeding days, resistance
stiffened. Artillery, antitank, mortar, and
Nebelwerfer fire increased. Battalion-size
counterattacks supported by a few tanks
or self-propelled guns increased too,
though seldom did they accomplish more
than to delay local advances for a few
hours.
The terrain and the weather were the
big obstacles. Whenever the tanks found
fairly level terrain, they could move
cross-country over the frozen ground
with some facility, but more often than
not the ground was hilly, wooded, or
marshy, confining the tanks to the icy
roads. I n advancing up a steep hill on 5
J anuary, eight tanks of a task force of
the 2d Armored Division stalled in a row
on the ice. Two antitank guns of the 84th,
Division and their prime movers skidded,
jackknifed, collided, and effectively
blocked a road for several hours. Two
trucks towing 105-mm. howitzers skidded
and plunged off a cliff.
FIELD MARSHAL MODEL
Deliberate roadblocks consisting of
felled trees with antitank mines em-
bedded on the approaches usually could
be eliminated only by dismounted in-
fantry making slow, sometimes costly
flanking moves through adjacent woods.
I n other cases, blown bridges blocked the
routes. Sometimes fords or bypasses to
other roads were available, but usually
infantrymen had to wade an icy stream
and create a small bridgehead while
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 31
tanks awaited construction of a new
bridge. Because bridge sites seldom could
be cleared immediately of enemy fire,
engineers did most of their work after
darkness blinded German gunners.
Advances on the first day against the
enemy’s outposts averaged about two
miles, but progress slowed on succeeding
days. Facing the bulk of the German
armor in this sector, the 2d Armored
Division on the right encountered par-
ticularly stubborn German stands on
both its routes of advance. When the
neighboring 3d Armored on the third
day, 6 J anuary, cut the lateral La Roche-
Salmchâteau highway, General Collins
sent part of the division westward to seize
the intersection with the main highway
to Houffalize in an effort to loosen the
opposition in front of the other division.
It was late the next day before the
Americans gained the intersection, which
they knew as Parker’s Crossroads after
the commander of a task force that had
made an epic stand there during the
winter counteroffensive. This did the
job expected: late on the same day, the
7th, a task force of the 2d Armored Di-
vision also cut the La Roche-Salmchâ-
teau road.
Artillery was hamstrung throughout
by poor observation resulting from the
weather, the woods, and the broken
ground. Since weather denied air support
on the opening day, General Collins can-
celed a preliminary artillery bombard-
ment as well in hope of gaining some
advantage from surprise. Artillery sub-
sequently averaged about 19,000 rounds
a day. Each armored division expended
about 7,000 rounds daily, corps guns
fired another 3,500 rounds, and infantry
divisional artillery and British pieces
west of the Ourthe provided additional
support.
While the role of the infantry divisions
was nominally supporting, it turned out
to be more than that. I n the main the
83d and 84th Divisions were to mop up
bypassed resistance, but when the first
shock of the armor failed to produce a
penetration, the role of the infantry in-
creased. Both divisions from the first
contributed a regiment each for attach-
ment to the armor, and before the fight-
ing was over both would incur appreci-
ably greater casualties than either of the
armored divisions.
For all the grudging nature of the
defense, the enemy produced few sur-
prises. Through the first week, full re-
sponsibility for defense lay with the
three units of the Sixth Panzer Army
previously identified, the 2d SS Panzer
and 12th and 560th Volks Grenadier
Divisions. At times, the panzer division
loaned some of its tanks to neighboring
infantry units, as on 5 J anuary when four
tanks reinforced a battalion of the 12th
Volks Grenadier Division in an effort to
retake a hill from the 3d Armored Di-
vision. The only outside help came from
assorted engineer and low-grade replace-
ment battalions. By the end of the week
all three German divisions were reduced
on occasion to using artillerymen and
other supporting troops as infantry.
Near the end of the first week, on 8
J anuary, Hitler at last authorized a with-
drawal, not all the way back to a line
anchored on Houffalize as General von
Manteuffel had urged but only out of
the extreme tip of the bulge to a line
anchored on a great eastward loop of the
Ourthe River some five miles west of
Houffalize. Because of the point at
which Hitler drew the withdrawal line,
32
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
only a few troops of the Sixth Panzer
Army, those on the extreme west wing
near La Roche, were involved. Those
authorized to withdraw were mainly con-
tingents of the Fifth Panzer Army facing
the British and the U.S. VIII Corps west
of Bastogne.
While the units of the Sixth Panzer
Army were to continue to hold, Die-
trich’s headquarters was to pull out,
gradually relinquishing control to the
Fifth Panzer Army. Thereupon, the two
SS panzer corps headquarters and four
SS panzer divisions that originally had
belonged to the Sixth Panzer Army were
to join Dietrich’s headquarters in the
rear near St. Vith, there to form a re-
serve to guard against attacks near the
base of the bulge. Thi s was, in effect,
tacit admission–Hitler’s first–that the
Ardennes counteroffensive had failed
utterly. 12
Reflecting the withdrawal, resistance
on the right wing of the VII Corps
gradually slackened. Patrols on the 10th
entered La Roche, while British troops
on the opposite bank of the Ourthe re-
ported no contact with the enemy. Al-
though the British re-established contact
on subsequent days, they met only light
covering detachments and, in keeping
with Montgomery’s desire to avoid major
British commitment, pressed their ad-
vance only enough to spare the Ameri-
cans flanking fire from Germans west of
the Ourthe.
The fight was as dogged as ever on the
other wing, where in deference to marshy
ground and an impoverished roadnet
leading to the final objectives on the
southeastern slopes of the Plateau des
12 Magna E. Bauer, The German Withdrawal
From the Ardennes, prepared to complement this
volume, annotated copy in OCMH.
Tailles, the 83d Division (Maj. Gen.
Robert C. Macon) on 9 J anuary assumed
the assault role on the left wing of the
VII Corps. It took the infantry two days
to break into and clear a village south of
the La Roche-Salmchateau highway and
another day to beat off counterattacks.
Not until forcibly rooted out would the
Germans budge from any position.
At the same time, the 82d Airborne
Division (Maj. Gen. J ames M. Gavin)
of General Ridgway’s XVIII Airborne
Corps had the job of protecting the left
flank of the VII Corps. To do this, the
airborne division was to press forward
to the line of the Salm River, which like
the Lienne and the Ourthe has its source
in the Plateau des Tailles. 13
Assisted by an attached separate regi-
ment, the 517th Parachute Infantry, the
airborne division jumped off along with
the VII Corps on 3 J anuary. Like the
armored divisions, the paratroopers and
glidermen met resistance immediately
from the weather, the terrain, and, to a
lesser extent, the enemy. The roadnet
was even more restricted than in front
of the VII Corps, and a thick forest
stretched across the center of the di-
vision’s zone.
Possibly because the enemy relied too
heavily on the forest as an obstacle, the
82d’s 505th Parachute Infantry found
relatively few defenders. I n three days
the paratroopers advanced four miles to
reach the far edge of the forest overlook-
ing the valley of the Salm.
Close alongside the boundary with the
VII Corps, the 517th Parachute Infantry
made only limited progress until it
turned abruptly on 7 J anuary to take the
enemy in flank. The next day the para-
12 The tactical story is from official records of the
XVIII Airborne Corps and subordinate units.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 33
troopers drove all Germans before them
east of the Salm and sent patrols to
range as far as two miles beyond the
river. On the 9th they established a small
bridgehead across the Salm to be used as
a stepping stone when the offensive
turned in the direction of St. Vith.
Another division of the XVIII Air-
borne Corps, the 30th (Maj. Gen. Leland
S. Hobbs) did much the same thing.
On 6 J anuary the division began limited
objective attacks with an attached regi-
ment, the 28th Division’s 112th Infantry,
to forge a bridgehead two miles deep
in an angle formed by the joining of the
Salm and Ambleve Rivers.
Resistance in the zone of the VII Corps
continued stiffest opposite the left wing
along a land bridge between headwaters
of the Salm and the Ourthe. There the
Germans occupied a forest mass in
strength with contingents of the 9th SS
Panzer Division moving in to support a
faltering 12th Volks Grenadier Division.
The infantry of the 83d Division still was
finding the going slow when the 3d
Armored Division’s Reconnaissance Bat-
talion discovered a network of back roads
and trails less staunchly defended.
The reconnaissance troops having
shown the way, the division commander,
General Rose, early an 13 J anuary sent
a combat command to trace the route,
break out of the woods, and cut the
lateral highway that follows the forward
slopes of the Plateau des Tailles en route
from Houffalize toward St. Vith. Al-
though the Germans still made a fight of
it for towns along the highway, the cut
by the armor effectively blocked this last
major route of escape for German troops
in the vicinity of Houffalize.
As night fell on the 13th, men of the
VII Corps could see to the south light-
ninglike flashes of artillery pieces sup-
porting the Third Army. Patrols
prepared to probe in that direction the
next day, eager to end the separation the
counteroffensive had imposed between
the First and Third Armies.
Getting this far had cost the VII Corps
almost 5,000 casualties, a high but hardly
alarming figure in view of the harsh
weather and terrain. Although fighting
a deliberate withdrawal action with de-
termination and skill, the Germans had
lost several hundred more than that in
prisoners alone.
A Grim Struggle Around Bastogne
Having collided head on with another
German effort to capture Bastogne, the
Third Army’s four-day-old offensive had
reached, on the eve of the First Army’s
attack, positions that mirrored a combi-
nation of American and German inten-
tions. Making a main effort against the
corridor southeast of Bastogne, Manteuf-
fel’s Fifth Panzer Army with some help
from the right wing of Brandenberger’s
Seventh Army had managed to retain or
establish positions that formed a salient
four miles wide and four miles deep into
lines of the Third Army’s III Corps.
That the salient was no deeper repre-
sented a defensive triumph for the III
Corps but at the same time marked a fail-
ure thus far of this phase of General
Patton’s offensive. East and north of
Bastogne, a line roughly three miles from
the town that stalwart soldiers of the
101st Airborne Division and assorted
lesser units had established and held
through the days of encirclement re-
mained intact. Against a German attack
west and southwest of Bastogne, troops
of the VIII Corps had managed not only
34 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
to contain the thrust but also to make
gains of their own, so that by nightfall of
2 J anuary the front line ran generally
west from Bastogne toward St. Hubert. 14
As the Third Army prepared to con-
tinue its offensive, the original plan re-
mained unchanged. While the I I I Corps
advanced generally northeast, in the
process eliminating the salient southeast
of Bastogne, the VIII Corps was to pivot
on the town and swing northeast to estab-
lish contact with the First Army’s VII
Corps at Houffalize.
Intending to return to the offensive on
4 J anuary, the Germans proposed a
change in their approach. Although
Rundstedt at OB WEST ordered an-
other attempt to sever the corridor into
Bastogne, Field Marshal Model at Army
Group B pleaded that the Americans had
become so strong around the salient
southeast of the town and had confined
it so tightly that no additional German
units could be inserted. Model suggested
instead an attack to push in the northern
and northeastern periphery of the Bas-
togne defense. There the ground was
more suited to tank warfare and General
von Manteuffel might employ the I SS
Panzer Corps (Generalleutnant der
Waffen-SS Hermann Priess) with the 9th
and 12th SS Panzer Divisions and the
Fuehrer Grenadier Brigade, the last an
elite unit originally drawn from Hitler’s
household guard, consisting of a bat-
talion each of tanks, panzer grenadiers,
and foot soldiers. 15
Possibly because Model was one of the
Fuehrer’s more faithful disciples among
top commanders, Hitler listened to this
change. What mattered to the Fuehrer
was not how Bastogne was taken but that
14 See Cole, The Ardennes, ch. XXIV and Map X.
15 MS #A-858 (Schramm).
it be taken. As revealed on 3 J anuary
when he acknowledged that the counter-
offensive would not gain Antwerp or
even the Meuse, Hitler required Bas-
togne as a vital anchor for holding the
bulge. Bastogne’s nexus of roads was
essential for securing the southern flank
and thus for helping the Sixth Panzer
Army to resist the American offensive
from the north that had begun that day.
I n creating the bulge in the Ardennes,
Hitler reasoned, he had forced General
Eisenhower to employ almost all his re-
sources. The desperate commitment of
elite airborne divisions to brutal defen-
sive battles was in Hitler’s mind proof
enough of that. By holding the bulge,
the Germans might keep the Allies
widely stretched while pulling out some
of their own units to attack at weak
points along the extended Western Front
and thereby prevent the Allies from con-
centrating for a major drive. Operation
NORDWI ND in Alsace, Hitler ration-
alized, was the first of these intended
strikes; yet only with Bastogne in hand
was the new stratagem practical in the
long run. 16
As finally determined, the main effort
of the new attack on Bastogne by the I
SS Panzer Corps was to be made astride
the Houffalize highway. Since some units
would arrive too late to attack early on
the 4th, only the 9th Panzer and 26th
Volks Grenadier Divisions west of the
highway were to attack at first, this in
midmorning, while the 12th SS Panzer
Division and a unit that only recently
had been brought into the Ardennes
from the Aachen sector, the 340th Volks
Grenadier Division, attacked at noon
along the east side of the highway. The
16 Ibid.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 35
Fuehrer Grenadier Brigade was to serve
as a reserve. The XLVII Panzer Corps
(General der Panzertruppen Heinrich
Freiherr von Luettwitz) west of Bastogne
and the divisions in the salient southeast
of the town were to hold in place, coun-
terattacking in strength where necessary
to maintain their positions or assist the
main attack. 17
Having fought through early stages of
the counteroffensive as part of the Sixth
Panzer Army, all divisions of General
Priess’s I SS Panzer Corps except the
340th had taken heavy losses. Between
them the two SS panzer divisions had 55
tanks, only one more than normally sup-
ported every U.S. infantry division. Al-
though one of the so-called Volks Ar-
tillery Corps that Hitler had created
especially for the counteroffensive was
to be moved in to strengthen existing
artillery, a shortage of gasoline made it
problematical when this force and even
some of the subordinate units of the
panzer and volks grenadier divisions
would arrive.
Top commanders hid their concern,
but neither Manteuffel, who already had
recommended stopping all attacks in the
Ardennes, nor his superior, Model, held
out much hope for the new attack. This
state of mind was clearly indicated when
they released without protest to OB
WEST for transfer to Alsace the corps
headquarters that had been controlling
the divisions in the salient southeast of
Bastogne. If the superior forces the Ger-
mans previously had employed at Bas-
togne against limited American strength
17 MS #B-779, The Z SS Panzer Corps During
the Ardennes Offensive, 15 December 1944–25 J an-
uary 1945 (Col Rudolf Lehmann, CofS); MS #A-
939, The Assignment of the XLVII Panzer Corps
in the Ardennes, 1944–45 (General der Panzertrup-
pen Heinrich von Luettwitz).
had failed, what hope with makeshift
forces now that the Americans had
sharply increased their commitment?
For renewing the Third Army’s of-
fensive around Bastogne, General Patton
had eight divisions. East and southeast
of the town, Millikin’s I I I Corps had
three veteran units, the 6th Armored and
26th and 35th Infantry Divisions. Hold-
ing part of Bastogne’s old perimeter de-
fense to north and northwest, the 101st
Airborne Division with an attached com-
bat command of the 10th Armored Di-
vision was the only readily available
experienced force in Middleton’s VIII
Corps. Middleton had in addition the
17th Airborne Division and two new-
comers to the front, the 11th Armored
and 87th Divisions, which General Brad-
ley had specifically directed to be em-
ployed at Bastogne lest Patton stint the
offensive there in favor of his cherished
drive near the base of the bulge. 19 In the
four days of fighting preceding renewal
of the offensive on 3 J anuary, the 87th
and the armor had taken substantial
losses, leaving the armored division
“badly disorganized” after loss of a third
of its tanks. 20 To enable the armor to
catch its breath, the new airborne di-
vision was to enter the line on 3 J anuary.
Meanwhile, an eighth division, the vet-
eran 4th Armored, had been pulled into
18 MSS #B–779 (Lehmann); #B–151a, Fi f t h
Panzer Army, Ardennes Offensive (General der
Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel); #A-940,
XLVI I Panzer Corps in the Ardennes Offensive
(General der Panzertruppen Heinrich von Luet-
twitz). See also Charles von Luttichau, Key Dates
During the Ardennes Offensive 1944, Part II, MS
prepared to complement this volume, copy in
OCMH.
19 On this point, see Cole, The Ardennes, pp.
612–13.
20 Army Commander’s Notes on the Bastogne
Operation, TUSA AAR, 1 Aug 44–8 May 45.
36 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
reserve after its tank strength had fallen
dangerously low as a result of heavy
fighting through much of December.
The remaining six of a total of four-
teen divisions in the Third Army were
split equally between Eddy’s XI I Corps
along the generally quiescent line of the
Sûre River running eastward to the Ger-
man frontier and Maj. Gen. Walton H.
Walker’s XX Corps. The latter had not
been drawn into the Ardennes fight and
continued to hold positions in Lor-
raine. 21
The Third Army and its veteran com-
mander, George Patton, had entered the
campaign in France in early August to
exploit the breakout from Normandy
engineered by Hodges’ First Army.
While one corps turned westward against
the ports of Brittany, the bulk of the
army had driven swiftly eastward across
northern France until a gasoline drought
forced a halt at the border of Lorraine.
Through the fall Patton’s troops had
fought doggedly across water-logged ter-
rain to gain a small foothold within the
West Wall at Saarlautern just as the
Ardennes counteroffensive began. While
the XX Corps continued to hold that
position, Patton had turned the rest of
his army toward Bastogne.
Despite General Patton’s affinity €or
armor, most of his staff and his corps
commanders were infantrymen, includ-
ing Eddy of the XI I Corps, an old-timer
with the Third Army; Walker of the XX
Corps, another old-timer; and Middleton
of the VIII Corps, whose command had
made the sweep into Brittany before
joining the First Army for a rendezvous
with fate in the Ardennes and then a
21 The depleted 28th Division and a combat com-
mand of the 9th Armored Division were awaiting
transfer from the Third Army.
return to the Third Army. Only Patton’s
chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Hobart R. Gay,
and General Millikin of the I I I Corps,
a relative newcomer to the Third Army,
had been commissioned as cavalrymen.
Bitterly cold, stung by biting winds
and driving snow, American troops on
the frozen ground around Bastogne saw
little change on 3 J anuary in a pattern
too long familiar. Many of the German
units had fought here since before Christ-
mas, such respected names as the 3d and
15th Panzer Grenadier Divisions, the 5t h
Parachute Division, the 1st SS Panzer
Division, and the Panzer Lehr Division,
the last so called because it originally bad
been a training unit. The place names
too, after more than a fortnight of grim
combat, were accustomed: Marvie,
Wardin, Mageret, Longvilly, Oubourcy,
Noville, Longchamps. So was the tactic
of almost every attack followed by an im-
mediate German riposte, intense shelling
preceding a seemingly inevitable tank-
supported counterattack. 22
Early on the 3d the Germans sur-
rounded a company of the 87th Division
(Brig. Gen. J ohn M. Lentz) on the west
flank of the VIII Corps, though a relief
column broke through before the day
was out. I n the afternoon tanks and in-
fantry hit the 101st Airborne Division
(Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor) at Long-
champs and south of Noville, achieving
some penetration at both places before
the paratroopers rallied to re-establish
their lines. Only the 6th Armored Di-
vision (Maj. Gen. Robert W. Grow) on
the left wing of the III Corps generally
east of Bastogne made any appreciable
gain, an advance of from one to two
23 This account is from official unit records. Ger-
man material is from manuscripts previously cited.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES
37
WIND-SWEPT SNOW I N THE ARDENNES
miles that took the battered villages of
Oubourcy, Mageret, and Wardin.
The renewed German attempt to seize
Bastogne began before dawn on the 4th
when a regiment of the 15th Panzer
Grenadier Division attacked Long-
champs in a token assist by Leuttwitz’s
XLVI I Panzer Corps to a main assault
that began a few hours later close by the
road from Houffalize. Combat raged in
this sector all morning, but at noon
counterattacking paratroopers still main-
tained their hold on Longchamps, and
intense artillery fire delivered in open,
snow-covered fields had driven back
tanks and assault guns of the 9th SS
Panzer Division. The airborne troops
and their armored support claimed to
have destroyed during the day thirty-four
German tanks.
East of the Houffalize highway and
east of Bastogne, the 12th SS Panzer
and 340th Volks Grenadier Divisions
achieved greater success in the main
German assault. Tank against tank, the
German armor forced the 6th Armored
Division to relinquish all three villages
taken the day before, but once the
American tanks had pulled back to high
ground west of the villages the Germans
38 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
could make no more headway. Here and
elsewhere artillery pieces of the III and
VIII Corps shared their power in
moments of crisis to deal telling blows
whenever the Germans massed and
moved into the open.
From the moment the 6th Armored
Division halted the panzers, the fighting
around Bastogne again reverted to pat-
tern. I n combat as bitter as any during
the counteroffensive, attack followed
counterattack on both sides until it was
scarcely possible to distinguish which was
which.
Handicapped by piecemeal commit-
ment of tardily arriving subordinate
units, the I SS Panzer Corps could do
little more than maintain the minor
gains achieved against American armor
on the 4th. West of Bastogne the XLVI I
Panzer Corps reacted so strongly to
American efforts to renew the attack on
the 4th with the inexperienced 17th Air-
borne Division (Maj. Gen. William M.
Miley) that the division had to spend
the next two days reorganizing and ad-
justing its positions. (“God, how green
we are,” said one regimental commander,
“but we are learning fast and the next
time we will beat them.”) 23
Nor could the infantry divisions of
General Millikin’s III Corps make any
headway against the salient southeast of
Bastogne. Late on the 5th Maj. Gen.
23 Third Army Diary kept by Gen Gay, entry of
5 J an 45, quoting Col J ames R. Pierce, 194th Glider
Infantry. As two German tanks counterattacked a
company of the 513th Parachute Infantry on 4
J anuary, Staff Sgt. Isadore S. J achman seized a
bazooka from a fallen comrade, ran to a position
close to the tanks, and opened fire. He damaged
one and prompted both to retire but himself died
of wounds incurred in the fight. A German-born
U.S. citizen, Sergeant J achman was awarded the
Medal of Honor posthumously.
Paul W. Baade reluctantly asked and
received permission to call off the attack
in the southern part of his 35th Di-
vision’s front; such a battle of attrition
had it become that his men could hope to
do no more for the moment than hold
their own.
As was the case with the First Army,
the Third Army could count on little
help from its supporting aircraft of the
XIX Tactical Air Command (Brig. Gen.
Otto P. Weyland). So dismal was the
weather that only briefly on one day, 5
J anuary, were planes able to operate. I n
one way this was a blessing, since the
weather also cut short a resurgence that
had begun around Bastogne a few days
earlier by a long-dormant Luftwaffe.
For all the success in blunting the
German thrust on the 4th, few Ameri-
cans viewed the situation with any com-
placency. Visiting the front late on the
4th during a German artillery bombard-
ment, the army commander, General
Patton, noted to himself glumly, “We
can still lose this war.” 24 The com-
mander of the VI I I Corps, General Mid-
dleton, kept close personal rein on his
division commanders and alerted the de-
pleted 4th Armored and the 11th
Armored Divisions to be prepared to
move swiftly to the aid of either or both
of the airborne divisions.
Unknown to the American command,
any crisis engendered by the German
attack had passed by nightfall of 5 J an-
uary. Late on that day Field Marshal
Model tacitly admitted failure at Bas-
togne by ordering General von Manteuf-
fel to release the 9th SS Panzer Division
to go to the aid of the Sixth Panzer Army
24 George S. Patton, J r., War As I Knew It (Bos-
ton: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1947), p. 213.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 39
in its hour of trial against the American
offensive from the north. The next day
Manteuffel took it upon himself to order
the 12th Panzer Division to pull out of
the line the night of the 7th to constitute
a reserve.
Sensing as early as the 6th that the
Germans soon might begin to withdraw,
General Patton for all his concern about
the bitterness of the fight deplored the
possibility. Only the day before he had
acquiesced in the artful persuasion of
General Bradley to move a newly avail-
able division from the XX Corps to the
salient southeast of Bastogne rather than
to use it in a strike against the base of
the bulge. Still hoping to mount an
attack against the base, Patton worried
now lest the Germans make good their
escape before he could act. 25
Despite the exodus of German armor,
American troops found no evidence on
7 and 8 J anuary of German intent to
withdraw. Although the U.S. divisions
around the salient postponed further
attacks to await arrival of the new di-
vision, patrols found the enemy as full
of fight as ever. The 17th Airborne and
87th Divisions meanwhile renewed their
attacks on both days with the usual vio-
lent German reaction.
For the 87th, trying to break into the
crossroads settlement of Tillet, midway
between Bastogne and St. Hubert, the
fighting proved bitterly frustrating as
every attempt met sharp riposte from the
Fuehrer Begleit Brigade, another elite
unit heavy in armor that also had been
25 Ibid.; Army Commander’s Notes on the Bas-
togne Operation.
created from Hitler’s household guard. 26
Although a regiment of the 17th Air-
borne Division entered Flamierge along
a major highway leading northwest from
Bastogne, the 3d Panzer Grenadier Di-
vision counterattacked late on the 7th
and again early on the 8th, trapping the
bulk of a battalion in the town. Most of
the able-bodied paratroopers eventually
escaped by infiltrating to the rear, but
they had to leave their wounded behind.
As divisions of the I I I Corps rejoined
the offensive on the 9th, any evidence of
German withdrawal still was hard to
come by, despite Hitler’s approval on the
8th for troops in the tip of the bulge to
pull back. Hitler’s authorization affected
only units west of Bastogne in any case,
since the new line he ordered to be held
ran generally northwest from Long-
champs toward the eastward bend of the
Ourthe. Even the affected units made no
precipitate exodus but instead executed
the kind of gradual, grudging withdrawal
that nobody did better than the Germans
with their penchant for counterattack
whenever and wherever a position ap-
proached the untenable.
Not until the third day of the renewed
offensive, 11 J anuary, did any firm indi-
cations of withdrawal develop. On the
west wing of the VI I I Corps, the 87th
Division after finally having entered
Tillet the night before found the Ger-
mans pulling back, abandoning St. Hu-
bert and several smaller towns but
leaving behind rear guards, roadblocks,
26 Near Tillet, Staff Sgt. Curtis F. Shoup of the
87th Division’s 346th Infantry charged head on
against a German machine gun, firing his auto-
matic rifle as he went. Although German fire cut
him down, he mustered strength as he died to hurl
a hand grenade that knocked out the enemy gun.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthu-
mously.
40 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
and deadly quilts of mines. At the same
time, southeast of Bastogne, men of the
I I I Corps saw their enemy also beginning
to give ground in the face of an envelop-
ing movement against his salient that
imposed a forced rather than intentional
retreat.
On 9 J anuary a newly arrived but
veteran 90th Infantry Division (Maj.
Gen. J ames A. Van Fleet) attacked to the
northeast through positions of the 26th
Division (Maj. Gen. Willard S. Paul)
along the southeastern fringe of the Ger-
man salient, while the 6th Armored Di-
vision, later reinforced by a regiment of
the 35th Division, tried a converging
attack from the northwest. The axis of
advance for both drives was a ridge road
running southeast from Bastogne that
served as a watershed for the little Wiltz
River along the base of the salient.
Having arrived under a heavy cloak
of secrecy, the 90th Division on the first
day took the enemy's 5t h Parachute Di-
vision by surprise. Even though a snow-
storm denied air support and turned
roads into slick chutes, the attack on the
9th carried just over a mile and the next
day reached high ground commanding
the only road leading out of the salient.
The Germans, despite a stalwart stand
denying progress in the converging at-
tack from the northwest, had no choice
but to abandon the salient.
They began to retire the night of the
10th. On the 11th and again on the 12th,
as infantrymen of the 90th Division
shook hands with colleagues of the 35th
Division on the other side of the salient,
the Americans took over a thousand
prisoners. Pulling back to the Wiltz
River where the cuts, fills, and tunnels
of a railroad aided the defense along a
natural extension of the line of the Sûre
River, the survivors of the salient joined
a hastily committed reserve, the Fuehrer
Grenadier Brigade, to hold fast. 27 From
the American viewpoint, this mattered
little, since emphasis shifted at this point
to the left wing of the I I I Corps where
Millikin's troops were to aid the drive
of the VIII Corps toward a linkup with
the First Army at Houffalize. 28
Despite German withdrawal on the ex-
treme west wing of the VIII Corps, the
going was slow. Disorganized in the bit-
ter give-and-take west of Bastogne to the
extent that the corps commander had
asked Patton to delay renewed attack, the
17th Airborne and 87th Divisions pushed
forward with little verve. Yet their snail-
like pace made small difference in the
end, because the veteran 101st Airborne
Division could make only measured
progress astride the road to Houffalize,
where advance had to be swift if any
Germans were to be trapped farther west.
A relatively fresh 340th Volks Grenadier
Division, plus counterattacking contin-
gents of the 3d Panzer Grenadier and
12th SS Panzer Divisions, insured not
only firm but often dogged resistance.
The most encouraging progress on the
direct route toward Houffalize appeared
about to develop on 10 J anuary east of
the main highway as General Middleton
inserted a combat command of the 4th
27 MS #A-876, Ardennes Offensive of Seventh
Army, 16 December 1944–25 J anuary 1945 (Gen-
eral der Panzertruppen Erich Brandenberger).
28 I n an attack i n this sector on 1 1 J anuary, a
squad leader i n the 6th Armored Division's 9th
Armored Infantry Battalion, Staff Sgt. Archer T.
Gammon, charged ahead of his platoon to knock
out two German machine guns and to close in
with such daring on a German tank that the tank
began to withdraw. Firing its 88-mm. gun as it re-
tired, the tank killed the intrepid soldier with a
direct hit. Sergeant Gammon was awarded the
Medal of Honor posthumously.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 41
Armored Division (Maj. Gen. Hugh J .
Gaffey) along the corps boundary to
seize Bourcy. Located on high ground
commanding the highway to Houffalize
where it passed through Noville, an
enemy strongpoint, Bourcy in American
hands might unhinge the defenses along
the highway. Yet hardly had the armor
begun to advance early on the 10th when
General Patton called a halt.
Having shared in the failure to guess
the enemy's intent to launch a counter-
offensive in the Ardennes, intelligence
staffs at SHAEF and the 12th Army
Group these days were seeing burglars
under every bed. They were concerned
lest the Germans spoil the American
offensive by counterattacking from posi-
tions near the base of the bulge south-
ward toward Luxembourg City or at
some point to the southeast where
American lines had been thinned to pro-
vide forces for the Ardennes. General
Bradley ordered Patton to pull out an
armored division to guard against this
threat. Seeing no burglars himself, Gen-
eral Patton filled the requirement by
selecting the 4th Armored Division,
which needed a rest for refitting any-
way. 29
General Bradley directed further that
Patton halt the attack of the VIII Corps
immediately and that of the III Corps
when it reached a logical stopping point.
Only after the German threat (based,
Patton believed, more on rumor than
solid intelligence) failed to materialize
did Bradley on the 12th give approval
for the Third Army to resume the of-
29 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 217; Gay Diary,
entry of 10 J an 45; Leonard Rapport and Arthur
Northwood, J r., Rendezvous Wi t h Destiny-A His-
tory of the 101st Airborne Division (Washington:
Infantry J ournal Press, 1948), p. 643. The last is
one of the better unofficial unit histories.
fensive, this time with the 11th Armored
Division (Brig. Gen. Charles S. Kilburn)
inserted between the two airborne di-
visions of the VIII Corps. 30
Progress of the renewed drive reflected
less of American intent than of German.
On the west, in the sector included in
Hitler's authorization to German units
to withdraw, patrols of the 87th Division
reached the Ourthe River the first day,
the 13th, those of the 17th Airborne Di-
vision the next. The armor, meanwhile,
attacking generally astride the line Hit-
ler had designated as stopping point for
the withdrawal, had to fight hard for
every objective and as late as the 15th
beat off a counterattack by some twenty
tanks supported by a covey of fighter
aircraft. Concurrently, the 101st Air-
borne Division astride the road to Houf-
falize encountered the same determined
stand as before. At Foy, south of Noville,
for example, the Germans counter-
attacked three times, retaking the town
at dawn on the 14th with a battalion of
infantry supported by a company of
tanks.
Yet the airborne troops, too, were
destined soon to experience softening re-
sistance. On the 14th, the Commander
in Chief West, Field Marshal von Rund-
stedt, appealed to Hitler to authorize a
further withdrawal: the line Hitler
earlier had specified west of Houffalize
already had been compromised in the
north and was being rolled up in the
south. He asked approval to pull back
farther to anchor a new line on high
ground just east of Houffalize, extending
it northward behind the Salm River and
southward through” existing positions
east of Bastogne.
30 Gay Diary, entries of 10, 11, 12 J an 45.
42
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
PATROLS OF THE FIRST AND THIRD ARMIES MEET AT HOUFFALIZE
Having accepted by this time the in-
evitability of losing the bulge, Hitler
agreed, but he refused to listen to ardent
pleas by both Rundstedt and the Army
Group B commander, Field Marshal
Model, that they be allowed to withdraw
by stages all the way to the Rhine, the
only line, they believed, that the Ger-
mans in the west still might hope with
any assurance to hold. They could with-
draw, Hitler said, but only under pres-
sure and only as far as the West Wall.
There they were to make their stand. 31
31 Bauer, The German Withdrawal From the Ar-
dennes; MS #A-858 (Schramm).
On the 15th, men of the 101st Air-
borne Division entered Noville, five
miles south of Houffalize. 32 Early the
next morning, the 11th Armored Di-
vision seized high ground along the high-
32 I n a complementary attack by the 6th Armored
Division on this same day, a gunner in the at-
tached 603d Tank Destroyer Battalion, Cpl. Arthur
O. Beyer, dismounted from his vehicle to capture
two Germans. When a German machine gun
opened fire on him, he rushed forward to knock
it out with a grenade, then worked his way along
a German defense line, wiping out the occupants
of one foxhole after another. I n his one-man as-
sault, he destroyed 2 machine guns, killed 8 Ger-
mans, and captured 18. For this feat, Corporal
Beyer received the Medal of Honor.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 43
way immediately south of Houffalize.
Southwest of the town, a patrol com-
manded by Maj. J oseph M. L. Greene
met a patrol from the 2d Armored Di-
vision of the First Army’s VII Corps.
Rent by the counteroffensive, the First
and Third Armies at last had linked at
the waist of the bulge. I n one way, it
was an empty accomplishment; so meas-
ured had been the advance, such delays
had the Germans imposed, that most of
the troops in what might have been a
sizable pocket had escaped.
J uncture at Houffalize nevertheless
marked completion of the first phase of
the campaign to push in the bulge. I t
also meant that the break in communica-
tions between American armies, which
had caused General Eisenhower to put
the First Army under Montgomery’s
command, no longer existed. At mid-
night the next day, 1 7 J anuary, the
First Army returned to Bradley’s 12th
Army Group.
The Drive on St . Vi t h
From the viewpoint of the First Army,
the juncture at Houffalize marked no
interval in the offensive to erase the
bulge, but it pointed up a shift in em-
phasis that had gradually been evolving
as linkup neared. Having begun to attack
early in J anuary in support of the VII
Corps, General Ridgway’s XVIII Air-
borne Corps took over the main assign-
ment, a drive eastward on the road ten-
ter of St. Vith. Collins’s VII Corps was
to support this drive briefly by also turn-
ing east; but because of the northeast-
ward orientation of Patton’s Third
Army, the VII Corps soon would be
pinched out of the line.
A more important supporting role was
to be performed by the V Corps. From
the northern shoulder of the bulge close
by its base, the V Corps was to seize a
defile along upper reaches of the little
Ambleve River, thereby springing loose
an armored division for a direct thrust
southward on St. Vith. The armor, once
free, was to come under command of the
airborne corps to constitute the northern
arm of a two-pronged thrust on St. Vith. 33
For the Third Army, the juncture at
Houffalize did represent a distinct break
in the offensive, since it gave Patton an
opportunity he would embrace with
relish-to return to his original concept
of an attack close to the southern base of
the bulge. Patton intended to launch-this
thrust across the Sûre River with General
Eddy’s XI I Corps.
I t was too late at this point (if it had
ever been feasible) to try seriously the
maneuver Patton had talked about in
December, a full-blooded attack north-
eastward across the German frontier to
Pruem to cut off and destroy the Ger-
mans in the bulge. The rationale now for
an attack from the south, directed almost
due northward in the direction of St.
Vith, was precisely the opposite of en-
velopment, a hope that threat from the
south would prompt the Germans to
shift enough strength from the vicinity
of Houffalize and Bastogne to enable
Millikin’s I I I Corps and Middleton’s
VIII Corps to advance with relative ease
toward the northeast. Yet against the
slim possibility that the XI I Corps might
achieve a breakthrough, despite sharply
compartmented terrain and heavy snow,
General Eddy held an armored division
in reserve. The 12th Army Group com-
mander, General Bradley, also proposed
33 FUSA Report of Operations, I Aug 44–22 Feb
45.
44 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
that once the First Army took St. Vith,
General Hodges should send a corps
south to link with the Third Army's
XII Corps, a shallow envelopment that
might trap any German forces still re-
maining farther west. 34
Having at last gained Hitler's permis-
sion to withdraw from the bulge, Ger-
man commanders faced the problem of
how to get out before converging Ameri-
can attacks at the base cut them off. They
had to make their withdrawal either on
those days when weather cloaked them
from the Jubo, as German troops called
Allied fighter-bombers, or by night. A
shortage of gasoline, that had developed
early in the counteroffensive as the logis-
tical pipeline over snow-drenched Eifel
roads broke down, was at this point
acute; and the prospects of bottlenecks
at the few tactical bridges in the snow-
slick gorge of the Our River along the
frontier filled many a commander with
dread. 35
German commanders now faced their
number one task of holding the shoul-
ders of their salient without the services
of the two SS panzer corps headquarters
and four SS panzer divisions that Hitler
had directed to assemble near St. Vith
under the Sixth Panzer Army. The
Fuehrer was becoming increasingly
piqued that field commanders had not
taken these divisions immediately out of
the line and were still using portions of
them as fire brigades in threatened sec-
tors. That the SS divisions soon would
be totally out of reach of the western
commanders became apparent on the
34 Gay Diary, entry of 15 J an 45; TUSA AAR,
J an 45.
35 MS #B-151a (Manteuffel); MS #A-876
(Brandenberger); Bauer, The German Withdrawal
From the Ardennes.
14th when Hitler ordered two volks ar-
tillery corps shifted hurriedly from the
Ardennes to the east in response to the
new Russian offensive and alerted the SS
divisions for a similar move. All that
would be left to hold in the Ardennes
would be men who not only had seen the
grandiose prospects of the counterof-
fensive dashed to bits but who also were
embittered by Hitler's pulling out the
SS divisions for what looked to the men
in the foxhole like a rest. 36
The new main effort by General
Hodges' First Army had begun even be-
fore the linkup at Houffalize and a day
before Hitler authorized withdrawal to
a new line east of Houffalize. This line
was already breached along its north-
ward extension, for even while acting in
a supporting role to the VII Corps Gen-
eral Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps
had established a bridgehead across the
Salm River and another over the Am-
bleve near where the two rivers come
together.
Beginning on 13 J anuary, as a first step
in the drive on St. Vith, the XVIII Air-
borne Corps attacked to flatten the
corner formed by the meeting of the
Ambleve and the Salm. At General Ridg-
way's insistence, this drive was to be no
measured blunting of the angle all along
the line; emphasis instead fell to the 30th
Division from positions on the northern
shoulder some three miles north of the
meandering Ambleve River at Malmédy
to drive southward, thereby posing threat
of envelopment to Germans in the Salm-
Ambleve angle to the west. 37 Having re-
placed the 82d Airborne Division along
the Salm on the right flank of the corps,
36 MS #A-858 (Schramm); Bauer, The German
Withdrawal From the Ardennes.
37 Sylvan Diary, entries of 4, 9 J an 45.
VICTORY I N THE ARDENNES
45
the 75th Division (Maj. Gen. Fay B.
Prickett) attacked in an easterly direc-
tion toward St. Vith to form the second
arm of a pincers threatening the Ger-
mans in the corner. The 106th Division
(Brig. Gen. Herbert T. Perrin) pressed
forward in the angle itself with the sep-
arate 517th Parachute Infantry and the
division’s sole surviving regiment (the
others had been destroyed early in the
counteroffensive) .
Nowhere was there a solid German
line. Although defense was stubborn and
included small counterattacks, it cen-
tered primarily in villages and on oc-
casional key high ground. On the first
day and again on the second, the 30th
Infantry Division south of Malmédy
made the most gains, advancing up to
four miles to take high ground that
guarded approach to the west shoulder
of the defile through which armor of the
V Corps later was to debouch.
Part of the 30th Infantry Division’s
success was attributable to hitting near a
boundary between major German units
-to the east the LXVI I Corps (General
der Infanterie Otto Hitzfeld) of Zangen’s
Fifteenth Army and to the west the XIII
Corps (General der Infanterie Hans Fel-
ber), which was still under control of
Dietrich’s Sixth Panzer Army. Pushing
back and occasionally overrunning por-
tions of a depleted volks grenadier di-
vision of Felber’s XIII Corps, the
infantrymen cut into the flank and rear
of the 3d Parachute Division of Hitz-
feld’s LX VII Corps, prompting Hitzfeld
to bring up another understrength volks
grenadier division in hope of filling the
breach. 38
38 German material is from Bauer, The German
Withdrawal From the Ardennes.
GENERAL RIDGWAY
The big disappointment to the
Americans was slow progress by the 75th
Division, whose advance across the Salm
toward St. Vith was so limited that it
took much of the threat out of General
Ridgway’s intended envelopment of the
Germans in the Ambleve-Salm angle.
While trying to make allowance for the
fact that the division had seen its first
combat only a day before Christmas,
both Ridgway and the First Army com-
mander, General Hodges, feared all of-
fensive punch temporarily gone. On the
19th, patrols of the 75th and 30th Di-
visions at last met to pinch out the 106th
Division and seal off the corner, but so
slow had been the 75th’s advance that
two divisions of Felber’s XlII Corps had
escaped with little difficulty. Seeing the
problem as one of command, General
46 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Hodges recommended the division com-
mander’s relief . 39
The main fight centered in the mean-
time on the defile through which armor
under the V Corps was to drive in order
to come upon St. Vith from the north.
Named for a town on the northern ap-
proach, this was known as the Ondenval
defile.
As the V Corps began its drive early
on 15 J anuary, a new commander took
over while General Gerow left to head an
army headquarters newly arrived from
the United States, the Fifteenth, destined
to serve primarily as an occupation force
as the Allies swept across Germany. 40
The new corps commander was Maj.
Gen. C. Ralph Huebner, who had guided
the veteran 1st Infantry Division since
the end of the campaign in Sicily.
General Huebner’s former command,
headed now by the former division ar-
tillery commander, Brig. Gen. Clift
Andrus, drew the assignment of opening
the Ondenval defile for the armor. While
the regiments of the 1st Division took
high ground east of the defile and con-
tingents of the 30th Division wooded
high ground to the west, the ad Di-
vision’s 23d Infantry, attached to the 1st
Division, moved south through Onden-
V al directly against the defile.
A five-day fight developed, primarily
against the 3d Parachute Division. Sens-
ing the full import of the attack as a
threat to St. Vith and those German
units still west of the town, Field Marshal
Model at Army Group B on the 17th
unified command in the sector by trans-
ferring Hitzfelds LXVI I Corps to Die-
39 Sylvan Diary, entries of 16, 17, 20 J an 45.
40 History of the Fifteenth United States Army
(no publisher, no date), an unofficial unit history.
See also below, ch. XV.
trich’s Sixth Panzer Army. Two days
later, in an effort to shore up a faltering
defense all along the line, General Die-
trich risked Hitler’s wrath by recommit-
ting artillery of the I SS Panzer Corps to
reinforce fires at the Ondenval defile and
small contingents of tanks from three of
his four SS panzer divisions to reinforce
local counterattacks.
Dietrich might slow the advance but
neither he nor cruel winter weather with
waist-high drifts of snow could stop it.
Sometimes the weather was more of a
problem than the enemy. On one oc-
casion two men stopping to rest dropped
unconscious from exhaustion. “We are
fighting the weather,” said General
Hobbs, commanding the 30th Division,
“and losing about one hundred a day.
. . . It is a hell of a country. ” 41
The state of the weather gave the little
Ardennes towns an added dimension as
prizes of war. Not only did the towns
control the roads needed for tanks and
trucks but they also afforded shelter, a
chance for the men to thaw out and dry
out, to get a night’s sleep under cover.
The towns, unfortunately, were almost
always in a draw or on a reverse slope,
making it necessary to seize the high
ground beyond and hold it from foxholes
blasted out of frozen earth with small
explosive charges. It became a matter of
constant nagging concern to forward
commanders to rotate their men and
allow all at least brief respite from the
cold.
Partly because the German soldiers,
41 30th Div G–3 J nl, 22 J an 45. This division’s
journal contains valuable verbatim records of tele-
phone conversations. See also Robert P. Hewitt,
Workhorse of the Western Front (Washington: In-
fantry J ournal Press, 1946), an excellent unit his-
tory.
VICTORY I N THE ARDENNES
47
MEDICS USE A “LITTER J EEP” TO EVACUATE PATIENTS
too, wanted shelter, and partly because
buildings made good strongpoints, the
villages and small settlements at critical
road junctions were hardest to get at.
Although sometimes delayed by mines
hidden by the deep snow, tanks and tank
destroyers proved almost essential for
blasting the Germans from the houses.
Artillery could chase the defenders into
the cellars, but it could not keep them
there. As men of one battalion of the
23d Infantry entered a village close be-
hind an artillery preparation, Germans
emerged in their midst to promote a
fight so intimate that at one point an
American soldier reputedly engaged a
German with his fists. 42
The enemy, fortunately, was not so
consistently persistent as was the weather.
Nearly all units had the experience of
advancing for an hour or sometimes even
half a day without a round fired at them;
then, suddenly, at a stream bank, a farm-
house, the edge of a wood or a village, a
flurry of fire from automatic weapons or
shelling from artillery and mortars, or
both, might erupt. Sometimes this sig-
naled start of a counterattack, usually in
42 1st Div G–3 J nl, 19 J an 45.
48 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
no more than company strength, precipi-
tating a sharp but usually short engage-
ment.
The 23d Infantry finally cleared the
Ondenval defile on the 17th, held it with
the help of massed artillery fires against
a battalion-size counterattack supported
by three tanks on the 18th, then passed
on in a blinding snowstorm on the 19th
to seize the first tier of towns beyond.
Through the defile and along another
road to the west in the 30th Division’s
zone, tanks, tank destroyers, and half-
tracks of the 7th Armored Division (Maj.
Gen. Robert W. Hasbrouck) began to
pass early on the 20th, headed for the
rubble that St. Vith had become after
this same division had fought gallantly
for the town in December.
Northward Across the Sure
Patton’s Third Army resumed its role
in pushing the Germans back with sur-
prise crossings of the Sûre River before
daylight on 18 J anuary. Close by the
German frontier, a regiment of the 4th
Infantry Division (Brig. Gen. Harold W.
Blakeley) began to cross into an angle
formed by confluence of the Sure and
the Our, while two regiments of the 5th
Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. S. LeRoy
Irwin) crossed on either side of Diekirch,
less than five miles west of the frontier.
While the men of the 4th Division pro-
tected the 5th Division’s right flank and
took out the enemy’s bridges across the
Our below the Luxembourg frontier
town of Vianden, four miles north of
the Sure, the men of the 5th were to
drive north along a highway that runs
within several miles of the frontier. Be-
cause the highway follows the crest of a
ridgeline through semimountainous
countryside (la Petite Suisse) , American
soldiers long ago had christened it the
“Skyline Drive.”
Even more than in the vicinity of St.
Vith, it was imperative for the Germans
to hold firm along the Sûre River, be-
cause the heaviest concentration of Ger-
man force remaining in the bulge, that
which had fought around Bastogne, was
peculiarly susceptible to a thrust from
the south. Four divisions of General
Brandenberger’s Seventh Army, charged
with defending the southern flank, and
at least nine of General von Manteuffel’s
Fifth Panzer Army in the vicinity of
Bastogne had to withdraw through this
southern portion of the bulge. The east-
west roads they had to use were markedly
inferior to the north-south routes that
beckoned an attacker from the south;
and the Germans had only five tactical
bridges over the Our River, three of
which, at and south of Vianden, were
dangerously close to the existing Ameri-
can line along the Sûre. The bridges in
any case inevitably meant congestion,
slowing the withdrawal and inviting at-
tack from the air. 43
Toward the end of December, the
presence in reserve south of the Sûre of
the 6th U.S. Armored Division had
alarmed General Brandenberger lest the
Americans strike while the bulk of his
strength was trying to help the Fifth
Panzer Army break Bastogne; but with
the shift of the armor to Bastogne and
the beginning of American attacks there,
Brandenberger had begun to view his
vulnerable positions along the Sûre with
greater equanimity. If his Seventh Army
was to be hit any time soon, Branden-
berger deduced, the strike would come
43 German material is from Bauer, The German
Withdrawal From the Ardennes.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 49
not along the Sûre close to the base of
the bulge but farther west where his
troops still held positions between Ettel-
bruck at the southern terminus of the
Skyline Drive, and Wiltz, positions that
were south and west of the Sûre in one
place and between the Sûre and Wiltz
Rivers in another.
Brandenberger was seeing American
intentions in terms of his own disposi-
tions. He was stronger west and north-
west of Ettelbruck, where three volks
grenadier divisions under the LIII Corps
(General der Kavallerie Edwin Graf
Rothkirch und Trach) held the line.
Along the Sûre between Ettelbruck and
the frontier, he had only one volks
grenadier division, which with another
that was holding a 30-mile stretch of the
West Wall along the frontier to the
southeast, made up the LXXX Corps
(General der Infanterie Franz Beyer) .
Although the little Sûre River is ford-
abIe at many points, the weather was too
cold for wading. Nor was American ar-
tillery to forewarn the enemy with a
preparatory barrage. The night was
black, cold, and silent as men of the 4th
and 5th Divisions moved assault boats
and three-man canvas rafts to the ice-
crusted edge of the stream. 44
The troops gained the surprise they
sought. Hardly a shot sounded along the
Sûre that night before the first waves of
infantrymen touched down on the north
bank. Only at a place just west of Die-
kirch, where a machine gun opened up
on an assault company of the 5th Di-
44 For an annotated account of this attack at a
small-unit level, see Maj. Dello G. Dayton, The
Attack by XII Corps 18–29 January 1945, unpub-
lished MS in OCMH, prepared in the European
Theater of Operations Historical Section soon after
the war. See also combat interviews with men of
the 5th Division.
vision’s 2d Infantry, was there trouble-
some German fire: and there the
infantrymen were able to pull back and
cross in an adjacent sector.
J ust east of Diekirch, a battalion of
the same division’s 10th Infantry turned
the icy, snow-covered river bank to ad-
vantage by loading men into the assault
boats at the top of the slope and shoving
the boats downhill like toboggans. At
another point engineers tied 150-foot
ropes to either end of the boats so that,
once the first wave had passed, they could
pull the boats back and forth across the
little river. I n two places infantrymen
crossed on footbridges that engineers had
quietly shoved into place just before
H-hour.
The night was so dark and the early
morning made so obscure by a combina-
tion of mist in the river bottom and
American smoke pots that the Germans
were hard put at first to determine the
“extent of the threat posed against them.
I n many cases U.S. troops passed unseen
by German machine gun and mortar
crews. Already seriously weakened by
loss of field pieces earlier in the Ardennes
fighting and by ammunition shortages,
German artillery was “as good as
blinded.” 45 Some three hours passed be-
fore the first artillery shells struck along
the river.
By the end of the first day a vehicular
ford and several treadway bridges were
operating to enable supporting tanks and
tank destroyers to cross the She. A
bridgehead up to two miles deep was
solidly established, in enough depth to
bring the two German bridges over the
Our downstream from Vianden under
punishing artillery fire. German troubles
45 MS # A-876 (Brandenberger).
50 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
had been further compounded when in
midmorning the 80th Infantry Division
(Maj. Gen. Horace L. McBride) had
begun to attack to the northeast to drive
General Rothkirch’s LI I I Corps behind
the Wiltz and another stretch of the Sûre
between Ettelbruck and the Wiltz River
and to facilitate the 5th Division’s ad-
vance up the Skyline Drive. 46
As surprised by the American thrust as
were the volks grenadiers on the ground,
the Seventh Army commander, General
Brandenberger, ordered most of the sup-
porting army artillery and engineer units
that had been grouped behind the LI I I
Corps to shift to the more seriously
menaced LXXX Corps. He also directed
a volks grenadier division to fall back
from the western tip of the LI I I Corps
to establish a blocking position astride
the Skyline Drive along a cross-ridge
northwest of Vianden, there to form a
mask for the two tactical bridges up-
stream from Vianden.
Field Marshal Model at Army Group
B provided help by ordering first a
Kampfgruppe, then all that was left of
the Panzer Lehr Division, transferred
from the Fifth Panzer Army. He fol-
lowed this with an order for a severely
depleted 2d Panzer Division also to turn
south, then headquarters of the X L VII
48 Ten days before, on 8 J anuary, in the village
of Dahl, near Wiltz, a 9-man squad of the 80th
Division’s 319th Infantry commanded by Sgt. Day
G. Turner fought savagely for four hours to hold
a house on the fringe of the village against a local
German attack. Turner himself bayoneted two
Germans, threw a can of flaming oil at others, and,
when his ammunition was exhausted, used enemy
weapons to continue the fight. Only three of his
men still were alive and unhurt when the Ger-
mans broke, leaving behind 1 1 dead and 25 cap-
tured. Sergeant Turner received the Medal of
Honor.
Panzer Corps to command the two pan-
zer divisions. Behind the Fifth Panzer
Army, engineers began building another
bridge over the Our.
I t would have required long hours
under ideal conditions for any of these
expedients to have effect. I n view of
crippling gasoline shortages and the
heavy snowstorm of 19 J anuary, it would
take not hours but days.
The 5th Division in the meantime
fought steadily up the Skyline Drive to
reach a point almost due west of Vianden
on the 21st; there the division paused
amid rumors of impending armored
counterattack. Several observers having
reported heavy German troop move-
ments around Vianden, the division com-
mander, General Irwin, was disturbed
that the 4th Division had been unable to
keep pace on his division’s right. There
the original defenders, their positions
compressed and their backs to the Our,
kept the 4th Division’s 12th Infantry at
a respectable distance from Vianden and
its vital bridge.
The situation was less disturbing on
the 5th Division’s other flank. There the
advance up the Skyline Drive had posed
such a threat of entrapment to the Ger-
mans of Rothkirch’s LI I I Corps that on
21 J anuary they began to pull out, leav-
ing only strong rear guards to oppose
the 80th Division’s attack to the north-
east. So precipitate was the exodus that
much of it took place in full view of men
of the 5th Division on the high ground.
The infantrymen cheered to see the Ger-
mans run. They cheered, too, at the rich
gunnery targets presented by long col-
umns of trucks, tanks, and horse-drawn
artillery. “Let her go, boys” one artillery
observer radioed to his gunners; “you
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 51
can’t miss a J erry wherever you land
them.” 47
Other observers demanded to know,
“Where is the air?” 48 Yet as on so many
days of the foggy, snowbound J anuary,
there was no air. During the morning, ice
and snow on runways prevented most
squadrons of the XI X Tactical Air Com-
mand from taking off, and during the
afternoon pilots of the few planes that
got up found ground haze too thick for
them to spot the targets.
That changed dramatically the next
day, the 22d. A brilliant sun came up, its
rays glistening on the new snow cover.
Four groups of fighter-bombers as-
signed to support the XI I Corps began
early to attack, then quickly called for
help until eventually the entire XIX
Tactical Air Command joined the hunt.
The snow-drenched roads were thick
with German traffic-much of Roth-
kirch’s LIII Corps pulling back to the
northeast, rear elements of the Fifth
Panzer Army seeking the east bank of the
Our, and the XLVI I Panzer Corps with
the 2d Panzer and Panzer Lehr Divisions
cutting across the grain of the withdrawal
to go to the Seventh Army’s aid. Snarled
by the snow and the deep canyon of the
Our, vehicles at the Our bridges were
stalled bumper-to-bumper.
American pilots were jubilant, re-
minded of the days in August when so
many of the Germans fleeing France had
been squashed along the roads like in-
sects. “For the first time [in the Ar-
dennes],” noted General Brandenberger,
“the situation in the air was similar to
that which had prevailed in Nor-
mandy.” 49 When the day came to an
47 5th Div G–3 J nl, 21 J an 45.
48 Ibid.
49 MS # A-876 (Brandenberger).
end, 25 squadrons had flown 627 sorties.
Although the pilots as usual made un-
realistically high estimates of their ac-
complishments, the day’s strikes caused
considerable damage and compounded
the delays that terrain, weather, and gaso-
line shortages already had imposed on
the German withdrawal. 50
The day of 22 J anuary was notable for
another development as well. On that
day Hitler ordered the Sixth Panzer
Army to quit the Ardennes entirely and
to transfer with all speed to the east to
oppose a broadening Russian offensive,
an unqualified admission not only that
the counteroffensive had failed but also
that the Eastern Front again had priority
on resources. I n addition to headquarters
of the two SS panzer corps and the four
SS panzer divisions, the shift included
the Fuehrer Begleit and Fuehrer Grena-
dier Brigades and assorted supporting
units. General von Manteuffel’s Fifth
Panzer Army assumed control of the two
corps in the north that General Dietrich
had been directing in opposing the
American drive on St. Vith.
The next day, 23 J anuary, was notable,
too, not in the air, since the weather
closed in again, but in three places on the
ground. I n the north, General Has-
brouck’s 7th Armored Division came
back to St. Vith, signaling the approxi-
mate end of the First Army’s role in
flattening the bulge. Along the Skyline
Drive, General Brandenberger on the
same day turned over defense of the
50 For various reasons, claims of enemy losses
from air action almost always were high. One study
conducted by the British proved by ground check
that air force claims of German tanks destroyed
in the Ardennes were at least ten times too high.
See Directorate of Tactical Investigation, War Of-
fice, The German Counter-Offensive in the Ar-
dennes, MS in OCMH.
52 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
blocking position northwest of Vianden
to the XLVII Panzer Corps with assist-
ance on the west from Rothkirch’s LIII
Corps. There would be no armored
counterattack, if indeed the depleted,
gasoline-short panzer corps had ever seri-
ously considered one, only a continuing
passive defense to keep the Americans
away from the Our bridges until the last
of the Fifth Panzer Army could pull out.
Also on the 23d, General Middleton’s
VIII Corps and General Millikin’s III
Corps got back into the fight even as the
12th Army Group commander, General
Bradley, came up with the genesis of a
new plan destined to affect employment
of these corps.
As early as 19 J anuary, General Patton
had detected enough indications that the
northward drive by Eddy’s XI I Corps
would prompt German withdrawal from
the eastward-facing line of the bulge to
justify ordering Middleton and Millikin
to resume their advance. Although Pat-
ton specified 21 J anuary for the push to
begin, patrols all along the front made
so little enemy contact during the after-
noon of the 19th that both corps com-
manders feared delaying another day lest
they collapse a bag filled only with air.
They ordered their divisions to put out
strong patrols and follow them up in
strength if resistance failed to develop.
It failed to develop for three days. A
tank-supported ambush in a village
mangled a company of the 90th Division
in the center of the III Corps, but other
than that, few units encountered any of
the enemy except stragglers. Although
some of these fired before surrendering,
none represented a true rear guard. So
heterogeneous was the mixture that the
6th Armored Division alone took prison-
ers from ten different divisions. The 11th
Armored Division on the north wing of
the VIII Corps was pinched out of the
line before ever catching up with the
enemy.
Yet for all the lack of resistance, the
pursuit was slow. The deep snow and
slick roads saw to that. Protecting the
right flank of the III Corps, the 6th
Cavalry Group most of the time had to
advance dismounted. To find suitable
roads, the 6th Armored Division often
had to impinge on the zone of the neigh-
boring 90th Division.
When coupled with staunch defense
against the attack of Eddy’s XI I Corps
from the south, the German withdrawal
meant an end to any hopes General Pat-
ton still might have entertained for
trapping his enemy with a drive close
along the base of the bulge. Nor was
there any point in implementing General
Bradley’s earlier suggestion that the First
Army send a corps southward from St.
Vith.
On the 23d Bradley called Patton to
his headquarters, there to propose a plan
that he had been contemplating for more
than a fortnight, a plan designed to par-
lay the attack to flatten the bulge into a
major drive through the Eifel to gain
the Rhine. 51 Since Bradley’s plan in-
volved use of a strong corps of the Third
Army close along the flank of the First
Army around St. Vith, Patton decided to
employ Middleton’s VIII Corps. Like the
First Army’s VIII Corps, which was
pinched out of the fight after only one
day of the renewed attack (22 J anuary),
the VIII Corps had been scheduled to be
pinched out by the northeastward orien-
tation of the III Corps: but because
Middleton and his staff knew the terrain
51 Gay Diary, entry of 23 J an 45; ch. III, below.
VICTORY IN THE ARDENNES 53
around St. Vith from earlier fighting,
Patton altered boundaries to change
this. 52 Turning the I I I Corps eastward
to pass directly across the front of Eddy’s
XI I Corps, he made room for Middle-
ton’s command.
While the VIII Corps with only one
division still forward adjusted to the
boundary change, the divisions of the
I I I Corps ran into a shooting war again.
After having fallen back approximately
nine miles, the Germans paused to at-
tempt a new stand behind the little Clerf
River, just over two miles west of the
Skyline Drive. Yet the resistance, though
strong in places, was spotty and depended
largely on infantry weapons. Both the
6th Armored and 90th Divisions crossed
the Clerf on the 23d, while the 26th
Division jumped the stream the next
day. By the 25th the hasty German line
had ceased to exist, and the defense re-
verted to delaying action by isolated
groups chiefly in a row of villages along
the Skyline Drive.
Although some fighting to clear the
west bank of the Our continued through
28 J anuary, it was a mop-up operation
occupying only a fraction of the Third
Army’s troops. The focus shifted to
shuffling units and boundaries in prep-
aration for the new offensive General
Bradley had outlined on the 23d. With
the Germans at last driven back into the
West Wall, the bulge created by the
futile counteroffensive that had cost Ger-
mans and Americans alike so heavily
was erased.
The drive from 3 through 28 J anuary
to flatten the bulge in the Ardennes
added 39,672 battle casualties to an
American total of 41,315 incurred during
52 Patton, War As I Knew It, pp. 224–25.
that phase of the fighting when the Ger-
mans were on the offensive. Of the addi-
tional losses, 6,138 were killed or died of
wounds and 6,272 were missing or known
captured. 53 J ust how many more losses
the combat in J anuary produced on the
German side is difficult to say. Estimates
of enemy losses for all the fighting in the
Ardennes have ranged from 81,834 (low-
est German estimate) to 103,900 (high-
est Allied estimate) .54 Possibly as many
as 30 to 40 percent of these occurred
during the J anuary campaign.
That the Germans were forced to re-
tire to the positions whence they had
emerged from the mists of the Eifel on
16 December was testament enough to a
victory for American arms. Yet a com-
bination of an American drive to push
in rather than cut off the bulge and an
adroit German withdrawal had enabled
the Germans to escape with losses no
greater than might be considered normal
in any deliberate delaying action under
harsh conditions of weather and terrain.
The Germans did it under the handicaps
of an acute shortage of gasoline and a
vastly superior, almost predominant,
Allied air force. In the process, they
saved most of their arms and equipment
too, although large numbers of tanks and
artillery pieces had to be destroyed near
the end for lack of spare parts and gaso-
line.
To the Germans, American tactics ap-
peared to consist of a series of quickly
shifting attacks that probed for weak
spots to take individual divisions in
flanks or rear. Noting that their ad-
versary eschewed night attacks, stopping
53 12th AGp, G–1 Daily Summary, master file, 1
Jan–28 Feb 45. Figures for the earlier period are
from Cole, The Ardennes, p. 674.
54 Pogue, The Supreme Command, p. 396.
54
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
with almost clocklike regularity as dark-
ness fell, the Germans deemed him slow
in following up retrograde movements
but doggedly determined. A constant
nibbling away at German positions
forced German commanders to weaken
one spot to shore up another, only to see
a new penetration develop elsewhere.
What saved them in numbers of in-
stances, the Germans believed, was an
American tendency to stop at a given
objective rather than to exploit an ad-
vantage fully and quickly. American
fighter-bombers, the Germans also noted,
failed to hit traffic bottlenecks such as
road intersections and bridges as hard as
the Germans thought they might. 55
Against these observations would have
to be weighed American difficulties. The
same cruel weather, the same slick roads
affected American operations, probably
more than the Germans’, since the offen-
sive force is normally the more exposed.
Like the Germans, too, American units
had problems with replacements. Even
the manpower well in the United States
was showing signs of going dry, and at
55 See Bauer, The German Withdrawal From the
Ardennes.
the height of the Ardennes fighting Gen-
eral Eisenhower directed both a comb-
out of rear echelon units and a program
whereby Negro service troops might vol-
unteer for the infantry. The Third Army
was particularly short of infantry replace-
ments until well along in the J anuary
campaign, and in all cases replacements
in terms of experience hardly could
equal the fallen.
The question of whether the counter-
offensive in the Ardennes had any
chance, however slim, of succeeding and
thus of whether Hitler was justified in
gambling major resources on the West-
ern Front would forever remain unan-
swered, one of those imponderables that
each student of warfare is apt to decide
only for himself. 56 As for the effect of
the counteroffensive and the heavy losses
it entailed on subsequent operations and
the final quest for victory in Europe, that
remained to be demonstrated as a last
offensive born in the cold and snow of
the Ardennes gradually expanded, even-
tually to encompass Allied armies all
along the line.
56 For a discussion of this point, see Cole, The
Ardennes, pp. 673–76.
CHAPTER III
Main Effort in the Eifel
I n early December, before the Ger-
mans struck in the Ardennes, the Su-
preme Commander had intended to
maintain unremitting pressure on the
enemy through the winter in hope of
forcing him back to the Rhine. Converg-
ing attacks by the 21 and 12th Army
Groups across the Rhine were to be
launched in early summer, 1945. To
criticism that pressure all along the line,
the broad-front strategy, was indecisive,
General Eisenhower had replied: “I t ap-
pears to me that wars are won in succes-
sive stages and until we get firmly
established on the Rhine we are not in
position to make the attack which we
hope will be fatal to the other fellow.” 1
That the Allies were not indeed in
such a position seemed fully attested by
the German counteroffensive. Studying
possible courses of action to follow after
eliminating the German gains, the plan-
ning staff at SHAEF drew a plan that
one critic called “almost a painstaking,
uninspired, plodding way through to
Berlin.” 2 The plan actually did call for
more methodical moves than before,
but the timetable, as events were to
prove, embodied considerable optimism.
1 Msg, Eisenhower to the Prime Minister, CPA–
90357, 26 Nov 44, SHAEF Msg File, Plans and
Opns, A4g–70, Folder 27.
2 Memo, G. H. Phillimore for Chief Plans Sec,
GCT/370–47/, sub: Plans, Future Opns–1945, 2
Jan 45, SHAEF G–3 file (Future Operations-
1945).
Pointing out that even before the
counteroffensive, Allied forces north and
south of the Ardennes had been insuf-
ficient to insure reaching the Rhine, the
planners advocated concentrating on one
section of the front at a time, starting
with elimination of the Colmar pocket
in the French sector, and forming a
SHAEF reserve of six divisions. The
planners proposed then to turn to an
offensive north of the Ardennes while
assuming the defensive elsewhere. Not
until the 21 and 12th Army Groups had
reached the Rhine from Wesel south to
Bonn were attacks to be resumed in the
south. Not until March, after Allied
forces had reached the Rhine all along
the front, was anybody to cross the
Rhine. 3
Although never formally approved,
this plan fairly represented the new em-
phasis on defeating the Germans west of
the Rhine by stages. As General Eisen-
hower wrote to Field Marshal Mont-
gomery:
We must substantially defeat the German
forces west of the Rhine if we are to make
a truly successful invasion [of the interior
of Germany] with all forces available.. . .
As I see it, we simply cannot afford the
large defensive forces that would be neces-
sary if we allow the German to hold great
3 Memo by Planning Staffs, sub: Future Opns—
1945, 23 Dec 44, SHAEF G–3 file (Future Opns—
1945).
56 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
bastions sticking into our lines at the same
time that we try to invade his country. 4
Of eighty-five Allied divisions expected
to be available in early summer, Eisen-
hower estimated that forty-five would be
needed in defense and reserve if the
Allies were at that time holding a line
similar to the one actually held on 15
J anuary, but only twenty-five if the line
followed the Rhine. 5
It was the SHAEF plan for cleaning up
the area west of the Rhine before be-
ginning a decisive thrust deep into Ger-
many that incited objections from the
British Chiefs of Staff. The British Chiefs
feared that the plan meant a dispersion
of strength and considered that Eisen-
hower had only enough superiority on
the ground to make a single powerful
thrust, backed by enough fresh divisions
to maintain momentum. This was the
basic point at issue when the British
Chiefs on 10 J anuary asked formally for
a review of strategy by the Combined
Chiefs which led to the Supreme Com-
mander’s plan being discussed at the end
of J anuary at Malta. 6
Convinced of the soundness of the
plan and assured of backing by the U.S.
Chiefs of Staff, General Eisenhower con-
tinued to lay the groundwork for a re-
newed offensive even while waiting for
the Combined Chiefs to rule, though an
element of the provisional hung over all
plans made during the period. The Su-
preme Commander directed specific at-
4 Ltr, Eisenhower to Montgomery, 17 J an 45, in
Pogue files. (These files consist of notes and ex-
tracts from documents in General Eisenhower’s
personal files, assembled by Dr. Pogue when he
was preparing his volume, The Supreme Com-
mand.)
5 Msg, Eisenhower to Marshall, S–75090, 15 J an
45, War Dept Cable Log.
6 See above, ch. I.
tention to what he considered the main
effort, a drive to reach the Rhine north
of the Ardennes in preparation for an
eventual attack north of the Ruhr in-
dustrial area. On 18 J anuary he ordered
the 21 Army Group commander, Mont-
gomery, to prepare plans for such an
offensive. 7
General Bradley’s Proposal
Through the course of the Ardennes
fighting, the 12th Army Group com-
mander, General Bradley, had been
aware that General Eisenhower intended
a return to a main effort in the north.
Since the Ninth Army was to remain
under Montgomery’s command and par-
ticipate in that drive, Bradley eventually
would have to relinquish divisions to
bring the Ninth Army to a strength at
least equal to that which had existed
before General Simpson had released
divisions to fight in the Ardennes. Gen-
eral Bradley nevertheless hoped to be
able to continue to attack with his army
group beyond the Ardennes to cut
through northern reaches of the Eifel to
the Rhine. 8
Against the obvious difficulties of
attacking in winter over countryside
equally as inhospitable as that of the
Ardennes and through the West Wall,
Bradley could argue that an offensive in
the Eifel fitted best as a continuation of
the attack to reduce the bulge. It would
avoid a pause to regroup; it would insure
a constant and mounting pressure against
the Germans; it would capitalize on
probable German expectation of an Al-
7 Msg, SHAEF to CG’s AGp’s, 18 J an 45, SHAEF
SGS 381, Post-OVERLORD Planning file, vol. III.
8 12th AGp Ltr of Instrs 12, 4 J an 45, 12th AGp
Rpt of Opns, vol. V.
MAIN EFFORT I N THE EIFEL
57
lied return to the offensive in the north:
and it would put the 12th Army Group
in a position to unhinge the Germans in
front of the 21 Army Group. To at least
some among the American command,
rather delicate considerations of national
prestige also were involved, making it
advisable to give to American armies and
an American command that had in-
curred a reverse in the Ardennes a lead-
ing part in the new offensive. 9
Attacking through the Eifel also would
avoid directly confronting an obstacle
that had plagued Bradley and the First
Army’s General Hodges all through the
preceding autumn, a series of dams
known collectively as the Roer River
dams in rugged country along head-
waters of the river near Monschau. So
long as the Germans retained control of
these dams, they might manipulate the
waters impounded by the dams to jeop-
ardize and even deny any Allied crossing
of the normally placid Roer downstream
to the north.
By pursuing an offensive that the 12th
Army Group’s planning staff had first
suggested in November, General Bradley
saw a way to bypass and outflank the
dams and still retain his ability to sup-
port a main effort farther north. 10 Brad-
ley intended to attack northeastward
from a start line generally along the Ger-
man frontier between Monschau and St.
Vith and seize the road center of
Euskirchen, not quite thirty miles away,
where the Eifel highlands merge with the
flatlands of the Cologne plain. This
would put American forces behind the
9 On the last point, see Gay Diary, entry of 24
J an 45.
10 For the early planning, see 12th AGp, Estimate
of the Situation, 29 Nov 4, 12th AGp G–3 file.
Memo by Planning Staffs, sub: Future Opns—1945,
23 Dec 44.
enemy’s Roer River defenses in a posi-
tion to unhinge them.
To the Supreme Commander, General
Eisenhower, Bradley’s proposal had the
double virtue of being a logical follow-up
to the job of reducing the bulge and of
accomplishing part of the general build-
up along the Rhine that he intended be-
fore launching a major offensive deep
into Germany. Yet Eisenhower saw a
12th Army Group offensive as no sub-
stitute for a main effort later by the 21
Army Group. Since Montgomery had
considerable regrouping to do before his
offensive would be ready, Eisenhower
agreed to let Bradley hold on tempo-
rarily to the divisions earmarked for the
Ninth Army and take a stab at the Eifel.
General Eisenhower nevertheless
sharply qualified his approval. If the
attack failed to show early promise of a
“decisive success,” he intended halting it
and shifting strength to the Ninth
Army. 11 The definition of decisive suc-
cess was apparently a quick, broad pene-
tration of the West Wall. 12 Even beyond
that the operation was to be subject to
review at any time, and General Bradley
was to be prepared to pass quickly to the
defensive, relinquishing divisions to the
Ninth Army. 13
The Eifel Highlands
Terrain would set even narrower lim-
its on tactics in the Eifel than in the
Ardennes. Streams in the Eifel have cut
even deeper into the surface of the old
plateau, and unlike the patchwork pat-
11 SHAEF to CG’s AGp’s, 18 J an 45.
12 Lt Col T. F. Foote, Staff Rpt. Visit to EAGLE
(12th AGp) TAC, 18 J an 45, i n 12th AGp 371.3,
Military Objectives, V.
13 SHAEF to CG’s AGp’s, 18 J an 45.
58 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
terns in the Ardennes, the forests are
vast. Although roads are fairly extensive,
they twist and climb in and out of the
stream valleys and through the narrow
confines of farm villages.
Well defined on the southeast by the
convolutions of the Moselle River, the
Eifel in the north and northeast merges
irregularly into the Cologne plain,
roughly on a line from Aachen through
Euskirchen to the Rhine some fifteen
miles south of Bonn. From the Belgian
border to the Rhine the greatest depth
of the Eifel is about forty-five miles. I n
width, the region extends along the
frontiers of Belgium and Luxembourg
from Aachen to Trier, a distance of some
seventy-five miles.
Close to the frontier, two hill masses
or ridges stand out. Most prominent is
the Schnee Eifel, a forested ridge some
ten miles long, roughly parallel to the
Belgian border east of St. Vith, rising
abruptly from the surrounding country-
side to a height of just over 2,000 feet.
The other is an L-shaped ridgeline or
hill mass forming a bridge between the
Hohe Venn and the Schnee Eifel, which
may be called from its highest point at
the angle of the L, the Weisserstein.
This ridgeline generally defines the Bel-
gian-German border southeast of Mon-
schau, then swings to the northeast. Part
of the north-south watershed for the
region, the Weisserstein in conjunction
with the Hohe Venn and the Schnee
Eifel also serves as the watershed between
Eifel and Ardennes.
Except for the Moselle the rivers of
the Eifel are relatively minor streams,
but they are important militarily because
of their deep, twisting cuts. The main
ones are the Our, running along the
frontier and joining the Sauer before en-
tering the Moselle; the Pruem, forming
another north-south barrier a few miles
beyond the Schnee Eifel; the Ahr, drain-
ing from the Hohe Eifel northeastward
to the Rhine; and the Roer. Two of the
more important towns within the gen-
erally pastoral region are Pruem and Bit-
burg, the latter in a relatively open
stretch of countryside southeast of
Pruem.
The northernmost reaches of the Eifel,
the region that General Bradley hoped to
avoid by making his attack south of the
Roer dams, has no general geographical
name, but American soldiers who had
fought there had come to know it as the
Huertgen Forest. Although not so high
as other parts of the Eifel, this is one of
the more sharply compartmented sectors
and at the time was almost completely
covered with forest and the debris of the
September to December battles.
The route that General Bradley chose
for his main attack cut across the narrow
northwestern corner of the Eifel, avoid-
ing the rugged Huertgen Forest. From
the Weisserstein several radial ridges
stretch northeastward toward Euskirchen
and Bonn, and along two of these run
good roads that converge at Euskirchen.
Although the Roer reservoirs and the
Schnee Eifel would confine the frontage
of the main effort to a narrow ten to
twelve miles, the advantages outweighed
this factor.
Athwart the selected route ran the belt
of concrete pillboxes, minefields, con-
crete antitank obstacles (dragon’s teeth) ,
and entrenchments of the West Wall.
From the Moselle to the northern tip of
the Schnee Eifel, the fortified zone was
relatively shallow, usually not as much
as a mile, but it drew strength from the
difficult terrain, including the gorges of
MAIN EFFORT I N THE EIFEL 59
the Our and the Sauer and the heights
of the Schnee Eifel. Farther north the
line split into two bands that diverged as
much as eleven miles. Pillboxes in the
second band were considerably fewer
than in the first.
The Enemy in the Eifel
It was peculiarly difficult to guess in
J anuary how strongly the Germans might
defend the West Wall, though the 12th
Army Group’s intelligence staff assumed
that the enemy would make as stalwart a
stand as possible, both because of a need
to hold the Allies at arm’s length from
the Ruhr and because of Hitler’s seem-
ingly fanatic refusal to yield ground
voluntarily. The large-scale Russian of-
fensive that had begun on 12 J anuary
increased the likelihood of a determined
defense of the West Wall even though
the means were slipping away into the
eastern void. 14
Still operating under the Fuehrer’s di-
rective of 22 January to complete an
orderly withdrawal from the Ardennes
into the West Wall, German command-
ers were, as expected, pledged to defend
the fortifications, but they were looking
forward to at least temporary respite
once they gained the fortified line. De-
tected shifts of some Allied units already
had reinforced the generally accepted
view that the Allies would return to a
major thrust in the north in the di-
rection of Cologne, so that the Germans
naturally expected pressure to ease in the
center. Because the V U.S. Corps ap-
peared to be readying an attack from
positions southeast of Monschau, the
Fifth Panzer Army assumed that the
14 FUSA G–2 Estimate No. 64, 21 J an 45.
Americans intended a limited attack to
gain the Roer dams. Remarking rela-
tively favorable terrain for armor around
Bitburg, the Seventh Army believed that
the Third U.S. Army might try to estab-
lish a bridgehead over the Our River
pointing toward Bitburg but anticipated
some delay before any attempt to exploit.
No one at the time expected a major
thrust through the Eifel. 15
As J anuary neared an end, the Ger-
mans would require another week to get
the bulk of the Sixth Panzer Army
loaded on trains and moving toward the
east, but so occupied were the designated
divisions with the move that no longer
could they provide assistance in the line.
Full responsibility for the defense lay
with Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army on
the north and Brandenberger’s Seventh
Army on the south.
Even as the Americans argued the
merits of a thrust through the Eifel, the
German command was making the first
of three adjustments designed to counter
the expected Allied return to a main
effort in the north. The commander of
Army Group B, Field Marshal Model,
transferred the XIII Corps to the Sev-
enth Army, in the process drawing a new
interarmy boundary running eastward
from a point south of St. Vith through
Pruem, a northward extension of re-
sponsibility for the Seventh Army. Al-
though the boundary with the Fifteenth
Army remained for the moment about
three miles south of Monschau, this
boundary too was to be adjusted north-
ward on 5 February to give the southern-
most corps of the Fifteenth Army to
Manteuffel’s command, again a side-
15 Material on the German side is from Bauer,
The German Withdrawal From the Ardennes and
the Western Front in Mid-J anuary.
60 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
slipping to the north. The third step, an
exchange of sectors between headquar-
ters of the Fifth Panzer and Fifteenth
Armies in order to put a panzer com-
mand in the path of the expected Allied
main effort, was destined to be delayed
by the attack in the Eifel.
As events developed, early stages of the
American drive into the Eifel would
pass north of the Seventh Army, striking
primarily at the front of the Fifth Panzer
Army, manned by the LXVI Corps
(General der Artillerie Walter Lucht)
and the LXVII Corps. It would later in-
volve also the extreme south wing of the
Fifteenth Army, a responsibility of the
LXXIV Corps (General der Infanterie
Karl Puechler) .
Although the divisions committed in
this sector still included such illustrious
names as the 3d Parachute and 9th Pan-
zer, these were in reality little more than
remnants of true divisions; and while
they still fought, the German command
would make little effort to rebuild them.
The Germans planned instead to pull
these once-elite formations from the line
for rehabilitation in keeping with the
theory that some respite would follow
withdrawal into the West Wall. The
Eastern Front had priority on replace-
ments at this point in any case, and such
replacements as did reach the west went
to the infantry and volks grenadier di-
visions that were to stay behind to hold
the fortifications.
I n a general way, Allied intelligence
anticipated this policy. It meant, in sum,
that in an effort to create a reserve, the
Germans would have to thin their ranks
in the Eifel to a point where no coherent
line would exist. Defense would have to
be by strongpoints, relying of necessity
on scraps and scratch outfits. The ragged
ranks might be stiffened a little with
concrete and barbed wire, their task
eased by bad weather and rugged terrain,
but the balance of forces remained hope-
lessly against them. Recognizing this
situation, the First U.S. Army’s G–2, Col.
Benjamin A. Dickson, expressed some
optimism about the chances of swiftly
cracking the West Wall and piercing the
Eifel. 16
I n the last analysis, as the Third Army
staff pointed out, quick success depended
primarily on the enemy’s will to fight.
Poorly trained and ill-equipped troops
could give good accounts of themselves
even in the fortifications of the West
Wall and the snowbound compartments
of the Eifel only if they wanted to. 17 As
the drive toward Euskirchen got under
way, just how much the individual Ger-
man soldier still wanted to fight was the
question.
A Try for Quick Success
The first phase of the offensive was to
be a frontal attack aimed at penetrating
the West Wall on a 25-mile front from
Monschau to Luetzkampen, near the
northern tip of Luxembourg. (Map I )
General Ridgway’s XVIII Airborne
Corps on the right wing of the First
Army was to make the main effort. Hold-
ing two infantry divisions in reserve for
exploitation, Ridgway was to strike with
two others to pierce the fortified line
between the Schnee Eifel and the Weis-
serstein astride the Losheim Gap. Named
after a town along the border, the gap is
a narrow corridor that in 1914, 1940, and
1944 had served German armies well as
16 See, for example, FUSA G–3 Estimate No. 63,
16 J an 45.
17 TUSA G–3 Periodic Rpt, 27 J an 45.
MAP 1
J Smith
62
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
MEN OF THE 82D AIRBORNE DIVISION pull sleds in advancing through the Ar-
dennes snow.
a débouché. Once through the gap, the
airborne corps would have access to one
of the main routes leading to Euskirchen.
At the same time, General Huebner’s
V Corps on the north was to penetrate
the western spur of the West Wall in the
Monschau Forest and protect the army’s
left flank by crossing northern reaches of
the Weisserstein and seizing Schleiden
and Gemuend, both important road cen-
ters astride a more circuitous but usable
route to Euskirchen. To exploit success
by either Huebner or Ridgway, the First
Army’s General Hodges held in reserve
Collins’s VII Corps with two infantry
and two armored divisions. 18
The Third Army’s role in this first
phase of the operation was to protect the
First Army’s right flank. General Patton
planned to attack at first only with Mid-
dleton’s VI I I Corps, whose northernmost
division, the 87th, was to advance abreast
of the XVIII Airborne Corps to the
vicinity of Losheim while the 4th and
90th Divisions to the south broke
18 12th AGp Ltr of Instrs 12, 4 J an 45; SHAEF
Liaison Rpt 432, Intentions, 28 J an 45, in 12th
AGp 371.3, Military Objectives, V.
MAIN EFFORT IN THE EIFEL 63
through the West Wall along and just
south of the Schnee Eifel. These two
divisions then were to block to the south-
east, whereupon Patton intended to in-
sert a fourth division on the right of the
87th to advance northeast with the 87th.
With protection of the First Army as-
sured, Patton then might advance with
three corps abreast northeast to the
Rhine or turn southeast to take the West
Wall in flank and roll it up southward
to Trier. 19
The line of departure for the attack
was irregular. I n the north, where units
of the V Corps still held the positions on
which they had stabilized the northern
shoulder of the counteroffensive some
weeks earlier, it ran from Monschau
south to the ridgeline that served as an
outpost of the Hohe Venn near Elsen-
born. Below that point, the attack would
begin from positions gained during the
last few days of fighting. Those generally
followed the highway leading into St.
Vith from the north. Beyond St. Vith the
line retracted to the southeast generally
along the trace of the Our River and the
German frontier.
Thus the XVIII Airborne Corps still
was from eight to twelve miles away
from the forward pillboxes of the West
Wall, which followed the eastward-
bulging contour of the Belgian-German
border. Since the countryside in this
bulge is either heavily wooded or
studded with villages, the troops making
the main effort faced a difficult task even
to reach the fortified line.
The 1st Infantry and 82d Airborne
Divisions of the XVIII Airborne Corps
opened the attack on 28 J anuary. The
next day the VIII Corps attacked with
19 TUSA Opnl Dir, 26 J an 45.
the 87th, 4th, and 90th Divisions. On the
30th, the V Corps jumped off in the
north.
The story of all these first attacks could
be told almost in a word: weather. By
the end of J anuary the month’s un-
usually heavy snowfall and low tempera-
tures had left a snow cover one to two
feet deep everywhere and in some places
drifts up to a man’s waist. Snow glazed
the hills, choked the valleys and the
roads, and hid the enemy’s mines. On
the first day, it snowed again all day and
into the night. 20
Plowing through the deep snow, the
two divisions of the XVIII Airborne
Corps encountered only sporadic opposi-
tion, often taking the form of occasional
patrols or scattered rifle fire. Yet men
marching all day through the snow even
without sight or sound of the enemy were
exhausted when night came from sheer
physical exertion. It would take the two
divisions four full days to traverse the
eight to twelve miles from their jump-off
positions to the high ground confronting
the West Wall in the Losheim Gap.
I t was in some ways a curious twilight
war. One night, for example, a patrol
from the 82d Airborne Division, sent to
investigate a report that the adjacent
87 th Division had occupied a village near
Losheim, found no soldiers, American or
German. Behind blackout curtains the
villagers had their lights on. Now and
then a shell crashed nearby, and between
times the paratroopers could hear babies
crying.
On the other hand, an enemy who was
nowhere in particular might be any-
20 Unless otherwise noted, the tactical story is
based on official unit records and combat inter-
views conducted soon after the action by historians
of the European Theater Historical Section.
64
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
TRAFFIC J AM ON A SLICK ARDENNES ROAD
where. As happened at the village of
Holzheim, where on 29 J anuary a com-
pany of the 82d Airborne’s 508th Para-
chute Infantry seized 80 prisoners while
overrunning the village. Leaving the
prisoners under a 4-man guard, the bulk
of the company had moved on when a
German patrol sneaked back into the
village, overpowered the guards, and
freed the prisoners. Onto this scene
stumbled the company’s first sergeant,
Leonard A. Funk, J r. Surprised, he pre-
tended to surrender, but as the Germans
moved to disarm him, he swung his sub-
machine gun from his shoulder and
opened fire. Seizing German weapons,
the 4-man guard joined the fight. I n the
melee that ensued, 21 Germans were
killed and the rest again surrendered. 21
Or as happened one night early in the
attack when a platoon of paratroopers
advanced down a narrow road between
three-foot banks of snow thrown up by
German plows. Three tanks rumbled be-
tween the files of riflemen. Out of the
darkness, dead ahead, suddenly appeared
a German company, marching forward in
close formation. The banks of hard snow
21 Sergeant Funk was awarded the Medal of
Honor.
MAIN EFFORT IN THE EIFEL
65
on either side of the road meant no
escape for either force. The paratroopers
opened fire first, their accompanying
tanks pouring withering machine gun
fire into the massed enemy. Surprised
and without comparable fire support, un-
able to scatter or retreat, the Germans
had no chance. Almost 200 were killed;
a handful surrendered. Not an American
was hurt.
Foot troops moved slowly, but they
could always move. Behind them ar-
tillery, supply, service, and armored ve-
hicles jammed the few cleared roads.
Especially congested was the zone of the
1st Division where every few hundred
yards a partially destroyed village
knotted the roadnet. When leading rifle-
men of the 1st Division reached the West
Wall, only one artillery battalion had
managed to displace far enough forward
to provide support. Trucks bringing
food and ammunition often failed to get
through. Had the opposition been de-
termined, the traffic snarls could have
proved serious; as it was, the only tactical
result was to slow the advance.
I t was 1 February—the fifth day of the
attack—before the two divisions of the
XVIII Airborne Corps could begin to
move against the West Wall itself. Close
by on the right, reflecting the day’s de-
lay in starting to attack, the Third
Army’s 87th Division needed yet another
day to reach the pillboxes.
North and south of the main effort,
the V Corps and the bulk of the VIII
Corps hit the West Wall earlier. One
division near Monschau, the 9th, north-
ernmost unit of the V Corps, was already
inside the fortified zone at the time of
the jump-off on 30 J anuary.
The 9th Division (Maj. Gen. Louis A.
Craig), moving southeast from Mon-
schau, and the 2d Division (Maj. Gen.
Walter M. Robertson), striking north
through the twin border villages of
Krinkelt-Rocherath, near Elsenborn,
were to converge at a road junction
within the Monschau Forest astride the
northern end of the Weisserstein at a
customs house called Wahlerscheid. Both
divisions would have to pass through
Wahlerscheid, a pillbox-studded strong-
point, before parting ways again to con-
tinue toward Schleiden and Gemuend.
Contingents of the 99th Division mean-
while were to clear the Monschau Forest
west of the converging thrusts, and the
Ninth Army’s southernmost division was
to make a limited objective attack to
protect the left flank of the attacking
corps.
In the long run, the V Corps would
benefit from the fact that its attack
struck along the boundary between the
Fi f t h Panzer and Fifteenth Armies, but
in the early stages the presence of West
Wall pillboxes would mean stiffer re-
sistance than that against the main effort.
Yet nowhere was the resistance genuinely
determined. The Germans of General
Puechler’s LXXIV Corps and General
Hitzfeld’s LXVII Corps simply had not
the means for that kind of defense. As
elsewhere, deep snow was the bigger
problem, while ground fog and low over-
cast restricted observation for artillery
and denied participation by tactical air-
craft altogether .
Approaching within a few hundred
yards of the Wahlerscheid road junction
late on 31 J anuary, the 9th Division
repulsed a counterattack by an under-
strength German battalion. Soon there-
after patrols discovered that the pillboxes
at Wahlerscheid were organized for de-
fense only to the south, a response to the
66 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
fact that the 2d Division in December
had hit these same pillboxes from the
south in the abortive attack toward the
Roer dams. The 9th Division’s 39th In-
fantry moved in on the rear of the forti-
fications early on 1 February. The 2d
Division in the meantime was fighting
its way through Krinkelt-Rocherath,
scene of an epic stand by the same di-
vision during the counteroffensive, and
then moving into the Monschau Forest
to come upon Wahlerscheid from the
south.
As night came on 1 February, both the
2d and 9th Divisions were ready to file
past Wahlerscheid. I n three days the
attack of the V Corps had begun to show
genuine promise.
On the south wing of the offensive,
the 4th (General Blakeley) and 90th
Divisions (Maj. Gen. Lowell W. Rooks)
of the VI I I Corps at the same time had
run into the stiffest fighting of all, partly
because of the obstacle of the Our River.
The lines of departure of the two di-
visions lay close to the Our, and for the
90th and the right regiment of the 4th,
crossing the river was the first order of
business. Narrow and shallow, the Our
was frozen solid at some points and easily
fordable at others, but steep, slippery
banks were a barrier to wheeled traffic
and, as it turned out, to tracked vehicles
as well. Yet what made the river most
difficult was that it was tied into the West
Wall defenses. Although the main line
lay two to three miles behind the river,
the Germans had erected at every likely
crossing point fortified outpost positions.
Aiming at the southern end of the
Schnee Eifel, one regiment of the 4th
Division on the first day, 29 J anuary,
tried to cross the Our four miles south-
east of St. Vith. As the leading battalion
approached the crossing site, a fury of
small arms fire erupted from the east
bank. Although one rifle platoon got
across before the worst of the firing be-
gan, the rest of the battalion backed off
to look for another site. Casualties were
relatively light—for the entire regiment
for two days, 9 killed, 29 wounded—but
it was noon the next day before all men
of the leading battalion were across the
Our.
A few miles to the south two regiments
of the 90th Division had much the same
experience. The leading battalions of
each regiment came under intense fire at
the selected crossing sites opposite the
German outposts, but individual com-
panies managed to maneuver to the
south to cross the river and come upon
the opposition from the rear.
Despite these successes, the 4th and
90th Divisions advanced only slowly
through deep snow against scattered but
determined nests of resistance for the
next three days. Partial explanation lay
in that both divisions were facing the 9th
Panzer Division, a shell of a unit but one
still capable of steadfast defense at se-
lected points. By 1 February the 90th
Division was in sight of the West Wall
around the villages of Heckhuscheid and
Grosskampenberg, while the 4th Di-
vision still had several villages to clear
before climbing the slopes of the Schnee
Eifel. 22
22 I n advancing on Heckhuscheid just after night-
fall on 1 February, Cpl. Edward A. Bennett’s
company of the 90th Division’s 358th Infantry
came under heavy machine gun fire from a house
on the edge of the village. Bennett crawled for-
ward alone, dispatched a guard outside the house
with a trench knife, then charged into the house
and killed three Germans with his rifle, eliminated
three more with a .45-caliber pistol, and clubbed
a seventh to death. He was awarded the Medal of
Honor.
MAIN EFFORT I N THE EIFEL 67
These two divisions were destined to
continue their attacks into the West Wall
but as part of another operation. On 1
February, the Damocles sword that had
hung over the 12th Army Group’s of-
fensive from its inception suddenly fell.
A Shift to the North
On 1 February General Eisenhower
ordered General Bradley to cancel the
12th Army Group’s drive on Euskirchen
and shift troops north to the Ninth
Army. 28 He made the decision even
though Bradley’s thrust, while slowed by
weather and terrain, was encountering
no major opposition from the Germans.
Only a complete breakthrough could
have saved Bradley’s offensive, and that
was yet to come.
Several considerations prompted the
Supreme Commander’s decision. Con-
tinuing pressure from Field Marshal
Montgomery, some feeling of pressure
emanating from the meeting of the Com-
bined Chiefs at Malta, Eisenhower’s own
unswerving conviction that the best way
to victory was in the north against the
Ruhr—all played a part. Also, Eisen-
hower in mid-J anuary apparently had
given Montgomery at least an implicit
promise that he would make a decision
on Bradley’s offensive by the first day of
February. 24
Eisenhower’s order halting the Eifel
offensive was in its formal, written form
clear-cut. “I t is of paramount impor-
tance,” the directive said, “ . . . to close
33 Msg, SHAEF to CG’s 12th and 21 AGp’s, S-
77434. 1 Feb 45, 12th AGp 371.3, Military Objec-
tives, V.
24 Ltr, Montgomery to Eisenhower, 12 J an 45,
Pogue files: Memo for Record, Bradley for G–3,
17J an 45: 21 AGp Dir, M–548, 21 J an 45. The last
two in 12th AGp 371.3, Military Objectives, V.
the Rhine north of Duesseldorf with all
possible speed.” 25 To achieve this, the
First Canadian Army was to attack not
later than 8 February and the Ninth
Army not later than 10 February. The
Ninth Army was to receive the equiva-
lent of the resources loaned the 12th
Army Group at the start of the Ardennes
counteroffensive, or at least five divisions.
With thinned ranks, Bradley’s armies
were to go on the defensive except in the
north where the First Army was to seize
the Roer River dams and, subsequently,
to jump the Roer to protect the Ninth
Army’s right flank.
Informally, General Eisenhower modi-
fied these terms considerably. Even
though Bradley was to relinquish troops
immediately to the Ninth Army, the
Supreme Commander would allow his
offensive in the Eifel to continue until 10
February with the declared objective of
gaining a line from Gemuend to Pruem
that would include the Weisserstein and
the Schnee Eifel and thus afford control
of the Losheim Gap for possible future
operations. Yet no matter how far this
attack had progressed by 10 February,
the First Army from that time was to
concentrate on a primary mission of
attacking across the Roer to protect the
Ninth Army’s flank. 26
Disappointed with the Supreme Com-
mander’s decision, General Bradley
nevertheless took hope in the possibility
that he later might turn the First Army’s
attack across the Roer to the south, per-
haps to join in a thrust by the Third
Army to clear the entire Eifel region. I n
that General Eisenhower granted the
Third Army permission to “continue the
25 S–734, 1 Feb 45.
26 Notes on Conference with Army Comdrs, 2 Feb
45, in 12th AGp, 371.3, Military Objectives, V.
68 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
probing attacks now in progress,” on the
theory of preventing the enemy from
shifting reinforcements to the north and
with a view to taking advantage of any
chance to improve the army’s position
for future action, Bradley found real en-
couragement. At headquarters of the
Third Army “probing attacks” were
popularly known as the “defensive-
offensive,” which meant, in more widely
understood terminology, a major attack.
Bradley knew, too, that the Supreme
Commander himself well understood
General Patton’s special lexicon. 27
Patton’s orders, issued on 3 February,
scarcely mentioned defense. The Third
Army, Patton directed, was to continue
to attack on its left to seize Pruem, to
drive northeast with its right from the
vicinity of Echternach to take Bitburg,
and to be prepared to continue to the
Rhine. 28
Since the job of taking Pruem fell
naturally to the VIII Corps and thus
constituted a continuation of the attack
then in progress, though in a different
context, the Third Army’s drive into the
Eifel was barely troubled by the decision
of 1 February. The First Army was more
severely straitened. While General Pat-
ton gave up only two divisions to the
Ninth Army, one of which was an inex-
perienced unit from the army reserve,
General Hodges had to surrender the
two reserve infantry divisions of the
XVIII Airborne Corps and the three di-
visions of the VII Corps that had been
standing by to exploit in the Eifel. Al-
though headquarters of the VII Corps
27 Ibid.; 12th AGp Ltr of Instrs, 7 Feb 45, con-
firming previous oral orders; Omar N. Bradley,
A Soldier’s Story (New York: Henry Holt and Co.,
1951), P. 501.
28 TUSA AAR, 1 Aug 44–9 May 45, vol. I, Opns,
P. 255.
was to remain under the First Army,
General Collins was to assume responsi-
bility for the southern portion of the
Ninth Army’s Roer River line, the same
front the corps had held before the
counteroffensive, and prepare to attack
to protect the Ninth Army’s flank. I n
addition, the V Corps had to mount an
attack against the Roer dams.
The First Army was to try again to
penetrate the West Wall in the Eifel, but
under the revised conditions chances of
decisive success were meager.
An End to the Offensive
For four more days, through 4 Feb-
ruary, the thrusts of the XVIII Airborne
Corps and the V Corps continued much
as before, particularly in the zone of the
airborne corps where the 1st Infantry
and 82d Airborne Divisions at last en-
tered the West Wall. While not every
pillbox was manned, the cold, the snow,
the icy roads hindering support and sup-
ply, and the strength lent the defense by
concrete shelters still imposed slow go-
ing. By 4 February the two divisions had
advanced little more than a mile inside
the German frontier, although a suffi-
cient distance to insure control of the
first tier of villages on a five-mile front
within the Losheim Gap. The advance
represented a penetration of the densest
concentration of pillboxes in this part
of the West Wall.
The V Corps meanwhile made sub-
stantially greater progress. Indeed, had
any authority still existed to turn the
Eifel drive into a major offensive, the
advances of the V Corps after clearing
the Wahlerscheid road junction on 1
February might have been sufficient to
justify alerting the forces of exploitation.
MAIN EFFORT IN THE EIFEL
69
On 2 February both the 2d and 9th Di-
visions pushed almost four miles beyond
Wahlerscheid, one in the direction of
Schleiden, the other, Gemuend.
Much of their success again could be
attributed to the luck of striking astride
the boundary between German units. As
early as 29 J anuary the northernmost
unit of the LXVI I Corps, the 277th
Volks Grenadier Division around Krin-
kelt-Rocherath, had lost contact with the
southernmost unit of the LXXI V Corps,
the 62d Infantry Division, whose south-
ern flank was at Wahlerscheid. Even after
the 277th Volks Grenadiers began to
withdraw into the West Wall on the last
two days of J anuary, no contact or even
communication existed between the two
units. 29
I n driving southeast from Monschau,
the 9th Division had virtually wiped out
the 62d Infantry Division. As units of
both the 2d and 9th Divisions poured
northeast through the resulting gap at
Wahlerscheid on 2 February, outposts of
the 277th Division on higher ground two
miles to the southeast could observe the
American columns, but the 277th’s com-
mander, Generalmajor Wilhelm Viebig,
had no way of determining what was
going on. Although Viebig's artillery
could have damaged the U.S. units, so
seriously depleted were his ammunition
stocks that he decided to fire only if the
Americans turned in his direction.
As darkness came on 2 February,
Viebig's corps commander, General Hitz-
feld, learned of the penetration. Order-
ing Viebig to extend his flank to the
29 German material is from Magna E. Bauer, MS
# R–65, The Breakthrough of the West Wall Be-
tween Ormont and Monschau.
north, he also managed to put hands on
small contingents of the 3d Panzer
Grenadier Division, which had been
withdrawn from the line for refitting.
Yet despite these countermoves, the 9th
Division by nightfall of 3 February stood
less than two miles from Gemuend, the
2d Division only a few hundred yards
from Schleiden.
Had the Americans been intent on ex-
ploiting their limited penetration, Hitz-
feld would have been hard put to do
anything about it, but the hope of major
exploitation through the Eifel by the
First Army was beyond recall. General
Hodges on 4 February made it official
with a letter of instructions spelling out
various shifts of units for his newly as-
signed tasks. 30 Not only was the VII
Corps to move northward to take over
a portion of the Ninth Army's Roer
River line but the XVIII Airborne Corps
also was to shift to assume responsibility
for a part of the Roer line adjoining the
VII Corps. The V Corps was to extend
its positions southeastward to relieve the
airborne corps while at the same time
attacking to seize the Roer dams.
Occurring late on 6 February, relief
of the airborne corps signaled an end to
the offensive in this part of the Eifel. The
line as finally established ran along high
ground overlooking Gemuend and
Schleiden from the west, thence south-
eastward across the northeastern arm of
the Weisserstein to the boundary with
the Third Army near Losheim.
Blessed from the first with little more
than ambition, the main effort in the
Eifel had ground to a predictable halt.
30 See First Army Report, 1 Aug 44–22 Feb. 45,
pp. 154–55.
CHAPTER IV
The Roer River Dams
I n one of the more sharply etched sec-
tors of the Eifel, a few miles northeast
of Monschau, German civil engineers
over the years had constructed seven
dams to impound and regulate the flow
of the waters of the Roer River and its
tributaries. These were the dams the
American soldier had come to know col-
lectively as the Roer River dams, with
particular reference to the two largest,
the Urft and the Schwammenauel.
Constructed just after the turn of the
century on the Urft River downstream
from Gemuend, near confluence of the
Urft and the Roer, the Urft Dam creates
a reservoir (the Urftstausee) capable of
impounding approximately 42,000 acre-
feet of water. Built in the mid-1930’s a
few miles to the north on the Roer near
Hasenfeld, the Schwammenauel Dam
creates a reservoir (the Roerstausee) ca-
pable of impounding about 81,000 acre-
feet. The Urft Dam is made of concrete;
the Schwammenauel of earth with a con-
crete core. I t was these two dams that the
Germans might destroy or open the gates
of to manipulate the waters of the Roer,
flooding a low-lying valley downstream to
the north in the vicinity of the towns of
Dueren and J uelich, washing out tactical
bridges, and isolating any Allied force
that had crossed the river. 1
1 A more detailed description of the dams is to
be found in MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Cam-
paign.
From September through mid-Novem-
ber, 1944, General Hodges’ First Army
had launched three separate one-division
attacks through an almost trackless
Huertgen Forest in the general direction
of the dams, though with other objec-
tives in mind. A combination of difficult
terrain and unexpectedly sharp German
reaction had stopped all three attacks
well short of the dams. Realizing at last
the importance of the dams to German
defense of the Roer River line, the
American command had tried to breach
them with air strikes, but these too
failed. I n December a ground attack
aimed specifically at seizing the dams had
been cut short by the counteroffensive in
the Ardennes. 2
Those attacks launched through the
Huertgen Forest had been directed to-
ward commanding ground at the town
of Schmidt, two miles north of the
Schwammenauel Dam. The short-lived
December attack had been planned as a
two-pronged thrust with two divisions
coming upon the dams from the south
while another pushed northeastward
from the vicinity of Monschau along the
north bank of the Roer to Schmidt.
Although the deep cut of the Roer and
2 MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign.
Charles B. MacDonald and Sidney T. Mathews,
Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo and Schmidt,
UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II
(Washington, 1952). “Objective Schmidt.”
THE ROER RIVER DAMS
71
the reservoirs themselves would have
imposed a tactical divorce on the two
thrusts, the best approach to the Urft
Dam was from the south and the high
ground at Schmidt was essential to gain-
ing and holding the Schwammenauel
Dam.
As the new V Corps commander,
General Huebner, planned the Febru-
ary attack on the dams, he apparently
had the earlier planning in mind.
Furthermore, attacks then under way
as part of the fading drive into the Eifel
fitted in with the two-pronged pattern
of the earlier plan. The drives of the 2d
and 9th Divisions through Wahlerscheid
on Gemuend and Schleiden had the
secondary effect of threatening the Roer
dams from the south, while a limited
objective attack staged by the southern-
most division of the Ninth Army to
protect the left flank of the First Army
had the secondary effect of setting the
stage for a thrust northeastward from
Monschau toward the Schwammenauel
Dam.
This division of the Ninth Army was
the 78th (Maj. Gen. Edwin P. Parker,
J r.) . Through the Ardennes fighting the
division had continued to hold positions
near Monschau that had been reached
in the December attack toward the
dams. It was a foregone conclusion that
when the boundary between the First
and Ninth Armies was adjusted north-
ward, the 78th would pass to the First
Army and become the logical choice for
renewing the attack on the Schwam-
menauel Dam. Begun on 30 J anuary,
the division’s limited objective attack to
protect the First Army’s left flank thus
was a first step toward capturing the
Schwammenauel Dam.
The 78th Division occupied a small
GENERAL HUEBNER
salient about two miles deep into the
forward band of the West Wall on a
plateau northeast of Monschau. Con-
taining sprawling villages as well as pill-
boxes, the plateau was one of the few
large clearings along the German border
between Aachen and St. Vith. As such,
it represented a likely avenue for pene-
trating the West Wall and had been so
used, though without signal success, in an
attack in October. For want of a better
name, the area has been called the Mon-
schau corridor, though it is not a true
terrain corridor, since entrance to it
from the west is blocked by the high
marshland of the Hohe Venn and farther
east it is obstructed by dense forest and
the cut of the Roer River.
The enemy there was an old foe, hav-
ing held the sector when the 78th made
its first attack in mid-December and
72
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
having tried in vain to penetrate the
78th lines in early stages of the counter-
offensive. This was the 272d Vol ks
Grenadier Division with a strength of
about 6,000 men. 3 The division was a
part of Puechler’s LXXIV Corps of the
Fifteenth Army, destined to be trans-
ferred on 5 February to control of the
Fifth Panzer Army. 4
The object of the limited attack was
to extend the 78th Division’s holdings
to the south and southeast to gain the
north bank of the Roer River from
Monschau to Einruhr, the latter guard-
ing passage of the Roer along a highway
leading southeast to Schleiden. The as-
signment was to be divided between the
311th Infantry on the east and the 310th
Infantry on the west, each responsible
for taking two of five villages in the
target area. Attached to the 78th Divi-
sion, Combat Command A (CCA) of
the 5th Armored Division was to take
the fifth village in the center with the
help of a battalion of the 311th Infan-
try. Because the 310th Infantry would
be rolling up the West Wall as it ad-
vanced, a platoon of British flame-throw-
ing tanks, called Crocodiles, was assigned
in support. 5
The attack began with a good break.
Although the division commander, Gen-
eral Parker, had intended a half-hour
artillery preparation, General Simpson,
with an eye toward building a reserve
for the Ninth Army’s coming offensive,
cut the ammunition allocation so dras-
3 78th Div G–2 Estimate, 26 J an 45.
4 See above, ch. III.
5 A good unit history, Lightning—The Story of
the 78th Infantry Division (Washington: Infantry
J ournal Press, 1947). supplements official records.
tically that Parker had to reduce the
preparation to five minutes. Accustomed
to longer shelling before an American
attack, the Germans in the pillboxes in
front of the 310th Infantry waited under
cover for the fire to continue. They
waited too long. I n a matter of minutes,
men of the 310th Infantry were all
around them. I n three hours they cleared
thirty-two pillboxes and took the village
of Konzen. Their final objective, the
next village to the south, fell the next
morning. So swift was the success that
the flame-throwing tanks saw little use.
I n the center, the tanks of CCA had
trouble with mines concealed by deep
snow, but by late afternoon they man-
aged to work their way in the wake of
the infantry to the fringe of Eicher-
scheid. With infantrymen close behind
them, they roared into the village and
began a systematic mop-up just as dark-
ness came.
Only on the extreme left wing of the
311th Infantry, at Kesternich on the
road to Einruhr, was the story basically
different. There the 2d Battalion already
held a few of the westernmost houses,
the sole lasting gain from a bitter fight
for the village in December. Yet despite
long familiarity with the terrain and the
most minute planning, the first com-
panies to enter the main part of the
village found control almost impossible.
Although the men had studied the loca-
tion of the houses from a map, they were
difficult to recognize. Many were de-
stroyed, some were burning, and the
snow hid landmarks. Communications
with tankers of the supporting 736th
Tank Battalion failed early. Mines ac-
THE ROER RIVER DAMS
73
counted for two tanks, antitank fire two
more. 6
With the Germans doggedly defending
each building, it took two full days to
clear the last resistance from Kesternich.
Capturing the town might have taken
even longer had it not been for a squad
leader in Company E, S. Sgt. J onah E.
Kelley. Each time Kelley’s squad as-
saulted a building, he was the first to
enter. Although wounded twice early in
the fighting, he refused evacuation. His
left hand useless, he continued to fire his
rifle by resting it across his left forearm.
Late on the second day, Kelley led an
assault on a machine gun position. Ger-
man fire cut him down as he expended
the last three rounds from his rifle and
knocked out the machine gun. 7
I n the two-day action, the 311th
Infantry lost 224 men, the bulk of them
from the 2d Battalion. J ust why Kester-
nich cost so much became clear as artil-
lery observers found they could direct
observed fire from the village on all
remaining German positions west of the
Roerstausee.
Toward Schmidt
In advance of the pending shift of the
First Army’s boundary to the north, the
78th Division on 2 February passed to
operational control of the V Corps. That
evening the division commander, Gen-
eral Parker, traveled to headquarters of
the V Corps to receive from General
Huebner the order for the capture of
6 Organized and trained to operate amphibious
tanks in the invasion of Normandy, the 736th had
been converted to a standard tank battalion in
November but had received no medium tanks un-
til J anuary. See 736th Tank Bn Hist.
7 Sergeant Kelley was awarded the Medal of
Honor posthumously.
Schmidt and the Schwammenauel Dam.
The task, Huebner told Parker, was the
most vital at that time on the entire
Western Front; until the dam was in
hand, the Ninth Army dared not cross
the Roer. Added to this glare of the
spotlight was the fact that the 78th
Division had had only limited battle
experience and the fact that the very
name of the town of Schmidt had be-
come a kind of bugaboo among Ameri-
can soldiers after the beating another
division had taken there in November.
All the ingredients for a bad case of the
jitters were present at the start.
As General Parker prepared his plan
of attack, it was obvious that terrain
would narrowly restrict the force that
could be applied against Schmidt and
the dam. Schmidt lies spread-eagled on
the eastern slopes of a high hill mass, in
general an east-west ridge with fingers
poking out to north, northeast, and
south. Adjacent high ground to the
north beyond the little Kall River, which
in German hands had contributed to
failure at Schmidt in November, was
controlled by the neighboring XIX
Corps.
It would be hard to get at Schmidt
along the route from the southwest that
the 78th Division had to take. Except
for a narrow woods trail from Woffels-
bach, close by the Roerstausee, the only
feasible approach from this direction is
along a lone main road following the
crest of the Schmidt ridge. The road
passes from the open ground of the
Monschau corridor through more than
a mile of dense evergreen forest before
emerging again into broad fields several
hundred yards west of Schmidt, where it
climbs Hill 493 before descending into
the town. A narrow but militarily im-
74 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
THE URFT DAM
portant feeder road parallels the main
road on the north for a few miles before
joining the main road at a point where
the Germans had constructed a nest of
wooden barracks, believed to be strongly
fortified.
I n addition to normal attachments, the
78th Division was to be reinforced by
the reserve combat command of the 7th
Armored Division, an engineer combat
battalion, fires of V Corps and 7th Ar-
mored artillery, and planes of the XIX
Tactical Air Command. J ump-off was
scheduled for 0300, 5 February.
General Parker intended first to clear
the rest of the Monschau corridor and
seize a line running inside the woods
from the Kall River in the north through
the nest of barracks to the Roerstausee.
(Map 2) From there the attack was to
proceed almost due east along the axis
of the main road into Schmidt, thence,
while subsidiary drives secured villages
north and east of the town, southeast to
the Schwammenauel Dam. The 309th
Infantry, attacking with its 3d Battalion
from within the Monschau corridor at
Rollesbroich, was to make the main ef-
fort in the first phase, seizing the bar-
racks at the juncture of the feeder road
THE ROER RI VER DAMS
75
SCHWAMMENAUEL DAM
and the main highway. Thereupon the
310th Infantry was to pass through and
take Schmidt.
The attack began on a bright note,
for late in the afternoon of 4 February
a company of the 9th Division reached
the Urft Dam after little more than a
cross-country march. Although American
artillery fire had done some damage to
outlet tunnels, the big dam still was in-
tact.
The beginning of the 78th Division’s
attack went well—unexpectedly well.
The 3d Battalion, 309th Infantry (Lt.
Col. Floyd C. Call), got off on time at
0300, 5 February, and in rain-drenched
darkness moved cross-country through a
web of pillboxes. The infantrymen slip-
ped past at least 35 concrete pillboxes
and bunkers from which 135 Germans
later emerged; but not a shot disturbed
them.
As the battalion advanced through
successive checkpoints and the word
came back over the field telephones, “No
enemy contact,” commanders prepared
the next step. I t looked like a penetra-
tion, but could it be exploited? Engi-
neers and reconnaissance troops moved
out to see if the roads were clear, partic-
ularly the feeder road north of the main
highway, the main axis of the 309th’s
76
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
MAP 2
advance. Meanwhile, other troops of the
division, including attached tanks of the
7th Armored Division’s CCR, prepared
to clear the remaining villages in the
Monschau corridor.
A little after daylight, General Parker
alerted the 310th Infantry for an im-
mediate move through the 309th. Fifteen
minutes later Colonel Call reported his
battalion “advancing toward the final
objective” and meeting small arms fire
for the first time.8 Shortly thereafter the
infantrymen of the 309th overran the
German barracks, catching some men
sleeping, others eating breakfast. Move-
ment orders for the 310th Infantry,
8 310th Inf J nl, 5 Feb 45, entry 0726.
H. C. Brewer, J r
THE ROER RIVER DAMS 77
meanwhile, had to await inspection of
the road. Inevitably, that took time.
During the wait the commanders
considered other possibilities. General
Parker thought of sending the 309th out
farther than originally planned. General
Huebner at V Corps contemplated more
drastic changes. Before 0830 he ordered
the 78th Division to form a task force
built around the 311th Infantry to cross
the Roer at Ruhrberg over the Paulu-
shof regulating dam, one of the lesser
dams in the Roer system, plow through
rough, wooded country between the
Urftstausee and the Roerstausee, and
come upon the Schwammenauel Dam
from the south. At the same time the
9th Division was to send a force across
the Urft Dam to block forest roads that
the Germans might use to move against
the 311th Infantry. 9 These maneuvers
were to take place during the night of
6 February. I n the meantime the main
effort by the 78th Division against
Schmidt was to continue.
Shortly before 0900 on the 5th it be-
came clear that mines and craters for the
present ruled out use of either the feeder
road or the main highway toward
Schmidt. The 3 10th Infantry, General
Parker ordered, was to proceed cross-
country without supporting weapons. In
two hours the infantrymen were on the
march.
Men of the 309th Infantry meanwhile
had begun to run into resistance as the
Germans awoke to their threat. A com-
pany on the right received what was
reported to be a counterattack, though
it apparently was no more than an ag-
gressive defense by a few German squads.
A fire fight took place nevertheless, and
9 V Corps Ltr of Instrs 051030 Feb 45, as cited
in V Corps Opns in ETO, p. 376.
in the woods where control is difficult, it
checked the advance. The attack, which
had flamed so brilliantly, began to show
signs of sputtering out.
With so much at stake, commanders
grew uneasy. General Parker an hour
before noon ordered the 309th Infantry
to go as far as possible beyond the bar-
racks and at the same time directed the
310th Infantry not to move into forward
assembly areas as planned but to pass
immediately through advance units of
the 309th Infantry and press the attack.
These orders stood less than fifteen
minutes; the corps commander, General
Huebner, intervened. I t seemed to
Huebner unsound in the face of seem-
ingly slight resistance to halt the attack
while waiting for a new regiment to
take over. The 309th, moreover, was the
freshest unit in the division. At his in-
stigation, the 309th was to continue to
Schmidt, reinforced by its 1st Battalion,
heretofore attached to the 310th Infan-
try. All troops were to advance without
supporting weapons until roads could
be opened. 10
The order was difficult to execute.
The 1st Battalion of the 309th in order
to rejoin its parent regiment had to pass
through two battalions of the 310th that
had already begun to move forward. I t
was two hours before men of this bat-
talion began to pass through and late
afternoon before they arrived at the
forward positions. The 2d Battalion had
been clearing pillboxes around the
barracks and could not assemble
immediately to move on to the east. The
3rd Battalion still was mopping up the
pillbox belt that had been negotiated so
rapidly before dawn by the 2d Battalion.
As night came, General Parker—ap-
10 78th Div AAR, Feb 45.
78 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
parently with the concurrence of Gener-
al Huebner—directed that all units
resume their original missions. The
310th Infantry was to pass through the
309th at 0300 the next morning, 6 Feb-
ruary.
Both regiments were in low spirits,
thoroughly confused by the day of
changing orders . 11 Men of at least one
battalion of the 309th learned that both
division and corps commanders were
displeased with their performance. The
men of the 310th Infantry were tired,
wet, and frustrated, and the regimental
commander warned that they would be
in poor condition for the next day’s
attack. The day of 5 February closed on
frayed nerves.
While the 311th Infantry had escaped
most of the confusion, that regiment’s
progress, too, was slow. The order to
cross the Roer at Ruhrberg General
Huebner canceled in the afternoon when
reconnaissance revealed that the Ger-
mans had blown a great gap in the road-
way over the Paulushof Dam and that
the swollen Roer was too deep and swift
to ford.
The order never had interrupted
operations. One battalion continued to
push across cruel terrain north of
Ruhrberg, the back way to Schmidt. Al-
though resistance was never resolute, the
job of clambering through woods, up
and down steep hills, and challenging a
succession of pillboxes wore the men out.
Yet they took the hamlet of Woffelsbach
and thus, by nightfall, were roughly on a
line with the 309th Infantry in the main
attack.
Since all attempts to speed the main
attack had failed and one had backfired
11 310th Inf J nl, 5 Feb 45, entry 1849; Combat
interviews with men of 3d Bn, 309th Inf.
in added delays, pressure for quick
success increased. General Huebner or-
dered that the attack on Schmidt itself be
made at daylight on 6 February and
that the Schwammenauel Dam be taken,
if possible, the same day. The First Army
commander, General Hodges, was to
arrive at the division command post in
the morning, which was a military eu-
phemism for “Get cracking, or else!”
At 0300 on 6 February, the 310th In-
fantry began passing through the lines
of the 309th with two battalions in
column, but hardly had the men crossed
their line of departure when they came
under intense grazing fire from auto-
matic weapons. As the men went to
ground, commanders temporarily lost
control. At daylight, the men rallied, but
commanders in the thick woods had no
real idea where they were. The day was
overcast, and dim light filtering through
heavy fir branches scarcely brightened
the gloom under the trees. Enemy artil-
lery and mortar fire ranged in. One bat-
talion counted about 200 rounds of
mortar fire in half an hour. Apparently
unobserved, the shelling caused few
casualties, but it was enough to stymie
advance. Tanks coming up the road to
support the attack drew antitank fire
and backed into hull defilade out of
contact with the infantry.
I n early afternoon the infantry tried
a new attack, but it had no punch. Since
observers were unable to adjust artillery
by sight in the thick woods, artillery
preparation was worse than useless, serv-
ing only to fell trees and branches in the
path of the infantry. Commanders still
had only a vague idea of where the men
were.
J ust before dusk, Company A on the
extreme right walked into an ambush.
THE ROER RIVER DAMS 79
The Germans allowed the lead platoon
to pass through their positions, then
opened heavy small arms fire on the
company headquarters and two platoons
that followed. The incident disorganized
the company and produced wild rumors
in the rear. Artillery observers reported
that the entire right flank was disin-
tegrating; Company A was “cut to
pieces.” 12 At division headquarters word
was that a substantial counterattack was
in progress and had achieved a con-
siderable penetration. Seven men from
Company A reported at regimental
headquarters that they were the sole
survivors.
The truth was that there had been no
counterattack and no penetration, but
defensive fires from what may have been
the enemy’s main line of resistance were
heavy and damaging. The 310th Infan-
try commander, Col. Thomas H. Hayes,
decided to call off the attack for the
night, pulling his advance battalion back
to consolidate with another in a night-
time defensive position. Seventy-five men
of Company A filtered back to join the
defense.
As night came, men of the 310th In-
fantry had little to console them for the
day’s sacrifices. Instead of attacking
Schmidt, they had barely struggled past
the line of departure. Paying the penalty
for the confusion and haste of the day
before, they had blundered under pres-
sure from higher headquarters into an
ill-prepared attack in the darkness
through unknown woods against un-
known positions and had suffered the
consequences that basic training doc-
trine predicts.
To give the stumbling attack a boost,
12 S–2-S–3 J nl, 310th Inf, 6 Feb 45.
General Parker on 7 February commit-
ted all three of his regiments. The 310th
Infantry was to continue along the axis
of the main road and take the crest of
the high ground, Hill 493 outside
Schmidt. The 309th Infantry on the left
was to drive northeast through the woods
to Kommerscheidt, just north of
Schmidt. The 311th Infantry on the
right was to push northeast through the
woods from Woffelsbach and take
Schmidt itself.
Although a half-hour artillery prepara-
tion preceded the new attack, it fell on
German positions manned at that point
only by a small rear guard. Having
managed to use the dense woods and
American errors to sufficient advantage
to make a stiff fight of it for a while,
the 272d Volks Grenadier Division, lack-
ing depth, had fallen back during the
night, The 309th Infantry met little
opposition until it reached Kommer-
scheidt. There a heavy concentration of
mortar fire sent the men diving into
water-filled shellholes and foxholes, relics
of the November fighting. Men of the
310th Infantry, accompanied by tanks
of the 744th Tank Battalion, walked
and occasionally rode along the main
road to occupy Hill 493 by midmorning.
I n the rough wooded terrain on the
right, the 311th Infantry had slower
going, but with considerable finesse men
of the leading battalion surrounded and
knocked out a succession of pillboxes.
At small cost to themselves, they gath-
ered in 117 prisoners during the day.
Taking advantage of the 310th Infantry’s
advance to Hill 493, another battalion
of the 311th Infantry with the support
of a company of tanks marched down
the main road toward Schmidt and ar-
rived at the woods line in time to launch
80 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
an attack in early afternoon. With in-
fantrymen riding the tanks, the column
prepared to make a dash over the crest
of Hill 493 and across a mile of open
fields into the town.
Hardly had the lead tank crossed the
crest of the hill when armor-piercing
shells struck it three times. As the tank
burst into flames, the other tanks scur-
ried back to the woods line.
Reorganizing, the infantry set out to
do the job alone. Covered by fire from
light machine guns, one company
plunged across the crest of the hill.
Despite persistent German fire, most of
the men had by late afternoon gained
the westernmost houses in the northern
part of the town. Another company tried
to come in through a draw south of
Schmidt but found the approach covered
by fire from automatic weapons. Night
was falling as the company gained the
first houses. Only at this point did the
tanks arrive to help in a house-to-house
mop-up of the town.
Toward the Dam
On the same day that the first Ameri-
can troops entered Schmidt, 7 February,
a regiment of the 82d Airborne Division
began to attack southward across the
corps boundary to cross the deep draw
of the Kall River and move cross-country
to cut the enemy’s escape route from
Schmidt, the road from Schmidt north-
east to the Roer at Nideggen. Terrain
imposed such limits on the advance that
by the time the 311th Infantry got to
Schmidt, little hope remained for a siz-
able prisoner bag. The next day another
regiment of the 82d Airborne crossed
the Kall gorge and relieved the 309th
Infantry in Kommerscheidt so that the
309th could participate in the final thrust
on the Schwammenauel Dam.
General Parker’s plan for the final
thrust called for the 310th Infantry to
pass through Schmidt early on 8 Feb-
ruary and drive east and southeast along
the highway to Hasenfeld at the foot of
the dam. As soon as the 310th had ad-
vanced far enough along this road to
uncover a line of departure for an attack
southward against the darn, the 309th
Infantry was to follow and move cross-
country to take the dam.
If this plan was to be executed swiftly,
Schmidt had to be fully in hand, a con-
dition General Parker believed already
met. On 8 February the men of the 310th
Infantry discovered otherwise. Many of
the houses, particularly those along the
road to Hasenfeld, remained to be
cleared, and the Germans yielded none
without a fight. Noontime came and
went, and the 310th still was battling to
get past the last houses and into the
open.
The First Army commander, General
Hodges, made no effort to hide his dis-
satisfaction with the pace of the attack.
The target date for the Ninth Army’s
offensive across the lower reaches of the
Roer, i o February, was little more than
a day away; but not until the 78th took
the dam could the Ninth Army move.
The First Army artillery commander,
Brig. Gen. Charles E. Hart, had seen to
it that 40 battalions of artillery (780
guns) could be called upon to help the
attack; General Hodges found it hard to
understand why with this amount of
artillery they could not “blast a road
from our present front line positions
straight to the dam.” 13
13 Sylvan Diary, entries of 6 and 8 Feb 45.
THE ROER RIVER DAMS 81
Shortly before noon on 8 February,
General Hodges telephoned the V Corps
commander, General Huebner, to ex-
press again his dissatisfaction. A few
minutes later the commander of the 9th
Division, General Craig, walked into the
V Corps headquarters on a routine visit.
How long, Huebner asked Craig, would
it take to shift a combat team of the 9th
Division to Schmidt to attack the dam?
Craig said he could do it “immediately.”
Huebner told him to move not only a
combat team but also the division head-
quarters. When Craig arrived in
Schmidt, the 78th Division’s 309th and
311th Regiments were to be attached to
the 9th Division. 14
Placing a telephone call to his division
command post, General Craig urged such
speed in the movement that first units
of his division already were en route to
Schmidt before he himself got back to
his command post. Turning over its
sector to the 2d Division, the 60th In-
fantry led the way. A second regiment
followed as a reserve, while the third
regiment remained behind under at-
tachment to the 2d Division. By mid-
night men of the 9th were in Schmidt
getting set to attack before daybreak the
next morning.
General Craig directed the 311th In-
fantry to clear wooded high ground
along the north and northeast banks of
the Roerstausee while the Goth Infan-
try took over the drive to Hasenfeld. The
309th Infantry remained on alert to
move against the dam itself.
Despite the introduction of a new
14 Capt. J oseph M. Mittelman, Eight Stars to
Victory, A History of the Veteran Ni nt h U.S. In-
fantry Division (Washington: Ninth Division As-
sociation, 1948), p. 309: Sylvan Diary, entry of 8
Feb 45.
commander and a veteran unit, the go-
ing on g February again was slow. Not
until late afternoon did either the Goth
Infantry on the road to Hasenfeld or the
311th Infantry along the northeast bank
of the reservoir advance far enough to
enable the 309th Infantry to begin its
attack against the dam. It was 1800—
after nightfall in this period of short
winter days-when the leading 1st Bat-
talion, 309th, passed through the 311th
Infantry and headed for the dam.
Groping through the darkness, the 1st
Battalion upon approaching the dam
split into two groups, one to gain the top
of the dam and cross over, the other to
reach the lower level and take the power
house. Those men moving against the
lower level were particularly apprehen-
sive lest the Germans at any moment
blow the dam, sending tons of concrete,
earth, and water cascading down upon
them.
With the upper group was a team
from the 303d Engineer Battalion, spe-
cially briefed on the nature of the big
dam. The engineers pressed forward at
2300 to begin a search for demolitions.
German fire at first forced them back,
but by midnight they were at last able to
start.
The engineers intended to cross the
dam to the spillway and there descend
into an inspection tunnel that intelli-
gence reports stated ran through the
dam. Crouched low against continuing
German rifle fire, the men raced across
but found a portion of the spillway
blown and access to the tunnel denied.
There was only one other way, to slide
down the 200-foot face of the dam and
gain the tunnel through its bottom exit.
Although the task was slow and
treacherous, the engineers accomplished
82
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
DAMAGE TO THE SCHWAMMENAUEL DAM causes flooding of the Roer River.
it. Entering the tunnel, they expected at
any moment to be blown to kingdom
come. The explosion never came. Sub-
sequent investigation revealed that the
Germans already had done all the dam-
age intended. They had destroyed the
machinery in the power room and had
blown the discharge valves. They had
also destroyed the discharge valves on a
penstock that carried water from the
upper reservoir on the Urft to a point
of discharge below the Schwammenauel
Dam, which explained why they had
allowed the Urft Dam itself to fall into
American hands intact. Together the
two demolitions would release no major
cascade of water but a steady flow calcu-
lated to create a long-lasting flood in the
valley of the Roer. 15
Allied commanders could breathe
easily again. The reservoirs that directly
and indirectly had cost so many lives at
last were in hand. It would have been
better, of course, had the Schwam-
menauel Dam been taken intact, thus
15 Lightning, pp. 118–20, contains a vivid account
of the engineer action. I n comments on the draft
MS for this volume, General von Manteuffel notes
that Hitler had specifically ordered that the dams
be destroyed but, Manteuffel says, he had for-
bidden it.
THE ROER RIVER DAMS 83
obviating any change in the Ninth
Army's plan for crossing the Roer; but
it was enough that the Germans had
been forced to expend their weapon
before any Allied troops had crossed the
river downstream.
I n the end the success belonged basi-
cally to the 78th Division. For all the dis-
satisfaction with the pace of the attack,
this relatively inexperienced division
had driven through rugged terrain over
a severely canalized approach. Dense
forest had nullified much of the artil-
lery's power, as weather did for air sup-
port. Too many cooks had appeared
from time to time to meddle in the tacti-
cal broth, but once the pressure was off
and the division's role could be assessed
with some perspective, General Huebner
could remark to General Hodges that he
had "made him another good divi-
sion." 16
16 Sylvan Diary, entry of 10 Feb 45.
CHAPTER V
The Drive on Pruem
Since General Eisenhower’s order of
1 February ending the 12th Army
Group’s main effort in the Eifel author-
ized the Third Army to “continue the
probing attacks now in progress,” Gen-
eral Middleton’s VIII Corps was able to
pursue its offensive almost without
pause. The Third Army commander,
General Patton, nevertheless altered the
objective of the attack and provided
additional strength. No longer was the
Third Army affording flank protection
for the First Army but instead was pre-
paring the way for what Patton hoped
could be developed eventually into a
two-pronged drive to breach the West
Wall on a wide front and drive on
through the Eifel to the Rhine.
General Patton told Middleton to go
beyond the Schnee Eifel ridgeline and
take the road center of Pruem. Even
before this objective was in hand, he
hoped to start General Eddy’s XI I Corps
on a drive northeastward from the
vicinity of Echternach to take Bitburg,
the other major road center in the west-
ern Eifel. Having thus carved out a deep
foothold inside the Eifel, he would pos-
sess a fulcrum for persuading his su-
periors to support an offensive the rest
of the way to the Rhine. 1
The VIII Corps zone remained as
1 TUSA AAR, 1 Aug 44–9 May 45, p. 255; TUSA
Opnl Dir, 3 Feb 45; Gay Diary, entries of 3–5
Feb 45.
before, approximately sixteen miles wide
from the Loshiem Gap in the north to
Luetzkampen, near the northern tip of
Luxembourg. Three divisions already
were in line, the 87th on the north, the
4th in the center, and the 90th on the
south. (Map III)
Commanded now by Brig. Gen. Frank
L. Culin, J r., the 87th Division was to
protect the corps north flank, a task of
considerable importance since the adja-
cent divisions of the First Army were no
longer advancing abreast. The 87th was
to accomplish its mission by penetrating
the West Wall and seizing a crossroads
astride northern reaches of the Schnee
Eifel ridge. I n corps reserve, General Kil-
burn’s 11th Armored Division was to be
ready to use a part of its strength to pro-
tect the south flank of the corps, where
the III Corps between Middleton’s and
Eddy’s commands was to remain at first
on the defensive.
The 4th and 90th Divisions together
were to make the main attack. The 4th
was to advance through the West Wall
astride the Schnee Eifel north of the
West Wall strongpoint of Brandscheid,
then wheel against Brandscheid. With
the strongpoint taken, the 4th was to
turn the town over to the 90th Division
and continue eastward to Pruem. The
90th Division was to widen the breach
in the West Wall to include Habscheid,
two and a half miles southwest of
THE DRI VE ON PRUEM 85
Brandscheid, then go on to take Prons-
feld, another road center on the Pruem
River five miles south of Pruem. 2
Since no unit of the VIII Corps had
yet entered the main part of the West
Wall, no one could say with any certain-
ty how completely and effectively the
Germans had manned the line. Although
patrols had found some bunkers un-
defended, it was unreasonable to suppose
that the Germans would abandon the
whole belt of fortifications. 3
On the basis of identifications made
in the drive up to the West Wall, the
Americans believed that the Germans in
front of the VIII Corps possessed rem-
nants of 7 divisions with a possible total
strength of about 7,000 perhaps sup-
ported by as many as 15 artillery battal-
ions. Another 4,500 men of 3 panzer-type
divisions with possibly 70 tanks and
assault guns might be in tactical re-
serve. 4 Thus in at least the first stages,
the defenders would be pitting some-
thing like a reinforced company against
each attacking regiment.
This was, in reality, a generally correct
estimate of the German situation. What
intelligence officers failed to note was
that again the Americans would achieve
an advantage by attacking almost astride
a German interarmy boundary, that
2 Unless otherwise noted, the tactical story is
based on official unit records and combat inter-
views. See also Hal D. Steward, Thunderbolt—The
History of t he Eleventh Armored Division (Wash-
ington: I nfantry J ournal Press, 1948); Gerden F.
J ohnson, History of the Twelfth Infantry Regi-
ment in World War II (Boston: National Fourth
Division Assoc., 1947); J oe I . Abrams, A History of
the 90th Division i n World War II (Baton Rouge:
Army-Navy Publishing Co., 1946); A Historical
and Pictorial Record of the 87th Infantry Division
in World War II (Baton Rouge: Army-Navy Pub-
lishing Co., 1946).
3 VI I I Corps G–2 Estimate 19, 4 Feb 45.
4 Ibid.
GENERAL MIDDLETON
between the LXVI Corps of the Fifth
Panzer Army on the north and the XIII
Corps of the Seventh Army on the south.
As established near the end of J anuary,
the boundary ran generally southeast-
ward between Pronsfeld and Pruem. 5
I n the two German corps, the task of
trying to hold the West Wall had been
detailed to volks grenadier divisions,
none of which exceeded regimental
strength even when reinforced by rear
area security battalions that occupied
some of the West Wall bunkers. All the
more elite formations had left the line
for rehabilitation or to assume reserve
5 The German story is based on OKW situation
maps for the period and the following manu-
scripts: MSS # B–041 (Generalmajor Hans-Kurt
Hoecher, CG 167th Volks Grenadier Division); #
B–123 (Generalmajor Rudolf Freiherr von Gers-
dorff, CofS, Seventh Army); # B–561 (General-
major Karl Wagener, CofS, Fifth Panzer Army) ; #
C–020 (Schramm).
86 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
roles. The last troops of the 9th Panzer
Division, for example, had departed the
LXVI Corps only two days earlier to be
rebuilt before shifting to the north
against the expected Allied main effort.
What was left of the 5th Parachute Divi-
sion-little more than a Kampfgruppe—
still belonged to the XIII Corps but was
out of the line in a backup position.
Remnants of the 2d Panzer Division with
a few tanks also were still around but in
a reserve role for the Seventh Army.
Artillery support averaged about two
understrength battalions per front-line
division, though additional support
could be provided by a volks artillery
corps located astride the interarmy
boundary. The West Wall, on which
German commanders counted strongly
to offset the shift of troops to the north,
was thinner astride the Schnee Eifel than
anywhere else along the frontier.
Furthermore, American troops occupy-
ing the Schnee Eifel from September
until the beginning of the Ardennes
counteroffensive had demolished many
of the pillboxes.
Into the West Wall
The VI I I Corps’ 4th Division knew
the demolished pillboxes well; it was
the same unit, that had attacked the
Schnee Eifel in September. The division
would get a rare opportunity to refight
an earlier engagement over the same
ground, under similar conditions of
enemy strength, against at least one of
the earlier opponents. Little would be
changed except the weather and stronger
support on the division’s flanks.
I n September two regiments of the 4th
Division had caught the Germans un-
prepared atop the Schnee Eifel and had
peeled off to left and right to clear the
thin line of pillboxes, seize Brandscheid,
and make room for the division’s third
regiment in the center. Yet no sooner
had the infantrymen emerged from the
woods cover of the Schnee Eifel onto
relatively open but sharply compart-
mented ground leading to Pruem than
hastily culled German artillery and in-
fantry reserves had appeared. Overex-
tended, tired from a long drive across
France and Belgium, lacking the strength
to exploit, the 4th had come to a halt. 6
As in September, the 4th Division’s
plan in February was to pause one day
in the shadow of the Schnee Eifel while
patrols probed the West Wall. A delay
also would afford time for engineers to
clear and repair roads that were rapidly
breaking down in an unseasonable thaw.
I n the very early hours of 4 February,
however, a reinforced platoon of the 8th
Infantry found the first belt of pillboxes
unoccupied, the Germans milling about
on foot and in horse-drawn wagons,
obviously unprepared for a fight. J ust as
a previous commander had done in
September, the division commander,
General Blakeley, ordered immediate
attack.
By 0600, 4 February, the 8th Infan-
try’s 1st Battalion was toiling up the
slopes of the Schnee Eifel in a snow-
storm and utter darkness to lead the
attack. An hour later the 22d Infantry’s
1st Battalion, a few hundred yards to the
south, joined the move. The first objec-
tive of both battalions was a road along
the crest of the Schnee Eifel, a string
beaded with pillboxes. Follow-up bat-
talions of each regiment were to turn
left and right to strip off the beads.
6 The action is covered in MacDonald, The Sieg-
fried Line Campaign.
THE DRIVE ON PRUEM
87
MEN OF THE 4TH DIVISION EATING INSIDE CAPTURED PILLBOX
As in September, success the first day
was complete. Dazed, disorganized
troops of the 326th Volks Grenadier
Division were nowhere near a match for
the assaulting force, even with the added
strength of the pillboxes. The 8th Infan-
try took 128 prisoners and incurred only
one casualty. After swinging southwest,
the 22d Infantry reached a fortified
crossroads at the woods line overlooking
Brandscheid. Again as in September,
seizing the crossroads and Brandscheid
itself awaited the second day.
Unfortunately for the Americans, the
similarities between the late summer
thrust and the winter attack were not to
end there. As before, the Germans
would be unable to muster sufficient
strength to expel the invaders, but they
could make every yard of advance in-
creasingly costly.
On the second day, 5 February, Ger-
man artillery and mortar fire increased
considerably. A battalion of the 22d In-
fantry toiled all morning to clear 11
pillboxes in and around the crossroads
above Brandscheid. Thereupon 2 com-
panies poised for a final' assault out of
the woods across five hundred yards of
open ground into the village. With them
88 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
were 10 medium tanks and 7 tank de-
stroyers equipped with 90-mm. guns.
Shortly after midday, tanks and tank
destroyers opened fire against all visible
pillboxes along the road into Brand-
scheid. Heavy machine guns from the
woods line chattered support. Infantry-
men burst from the forest cover, shoot-
ing their rifles and bazookas and tossing
white phosphorus grenades as they ran.
Although the Germans returned the fire
at first, it diminished as the Americans
closed in. Within three hours, the 22d
Infantry held Brandscheid and a formi-
dable ring of pillboxes. The cost was
surprisingly light, a total of 43 casualties,
of which 3 were fatalities.
The 8th Infantry for its part con-
tinued to roll up the fortified line to the
northeast. As the day wore on, the job
became increasingly difficult as resist-
ance stiffened like a coil spring under
compression.
A few hundred yards to the north, the
87th Division began during the night of
5 February to carry out its mission of
cutting the road along the northern end
of the Schnee Eifel to protect the corps
left flank. Although men of the 87th had
little trouble gaining the crest of the
ridge, lateral movement the next day
northeast and southwest was slowed,
chiefly by the increased enemy artillery
fire. The division nevertheless accom-
plished its limited mission in relatively
short order.
The 90th Division thus far had par-
ticipated in the fighting only with a
demonstration by fire on 5 February
against Habscheid to distract German
attention from the 4th Division’s attack;
a more direct role was in the offing
before daylight on the 6th. I n perform-
ing it, the 90th too was destined to run
into the same pattern of easy early suc-
cess followed quickly by stiffening resist-
ance.
The 90th was to make a two-pronged
attack. The 359th Infantry was to take
Habscheid in a frontal assault from a
starting point just over a mile from the
town along the main highway from the
Our River through Habscheid to Prons-
feld. Thereupon the 357th Infantry was
to pass through for the attack on Prons-
feld itself, not quite five miles away. The
358th Infantry in the meantime was to
take over at Brandscheid and drive
southeast to seize high ground along the
Pruem River between Pronsfeld and
Pruem.
At 0400 on 6 February, without artil-
lery preparation, all three battalions of
the 359th Infantry jumped off abreast,
guiding on the main highway into Hab-
scheid. Despite the general alert occa-
sioned by the previous day’s fighting,
the regiments took the Germans by sur-
prise. All but two rifle companies were
inside Habscheid by daylight. Of about
eighty Germans captured, some were
taken asleep at their posts.
Then the problems began. On the
approach to Habscheid the highway
passed through a band of dragon’s teeth,
the road itself blocked by a heavy gate
of logs anchored in concrete. As day-
light neared, engineers blew the barrier,
only to discover that the infantry pass-
ing in the dark had failed to take out
enemy machine guns in nearby pillboxes
that were sited to cover the gate. Alerted
by the explosion, the Germans came to
life, drenching the engineers with auto-
matic weapons fire and calling down
mortar and Nebelwerfer fire on the spot.
Along with the engineers, the fires
pinned down the two reserve rifle com-
THE DRIVE ON PRUEM 89
panies that had yet to reach Habscheid.
As daylight came, maneuvers to get
around the enemy proved impossible.
While the engineers waited, unable
to sweep the road ahead for mines, in
and beyond Habscheid the bulk of the
infantrymen, slowly clearing pillboxes,
reported they had gone about as far as
they could without tank support. The
situation for a moment threatened to
become a deadlock, but the Germans
had not the numbers close at hand to
exploit their temporary advantage. The
moment passed. When at length a self-
propelled 155-mm. gun arrived to fire
directly at the pillboxes covering the
approach to Habscheid, the defenders
ran. The engineers at last could start
sweeping the road. Even so, it was after
nightfall before they had cleared it and
tanks could get forward.
Meanwhile, it was at Brandscheid that
the first of the enemy’s adjustments in
reaction to the attack became apparent.
I n the village nobody on either side got
much sleep through the night of 5
February.
From the German viewpoint, the 4th
Division’s penetration at Brandscheid
had virtually collapsed the south flank
of the 326th Volks Grenadier Division.
Constantly committed since 16 Decem-
ber, the division was a skeleton. Its two
regiments had only about 140 men each.
Only two 75-mm. guns were in the anti-
tank battalion; only eight artillery pieces
in support. The division’s north flank
broken by the surprise penetration of
the West Wall on the Schnee Eifel, the
division lacked the men even to seal off
the thrust at Brandscheid, much less to
counterattack. The corps commander,
General Lucht, ordered help from the
neighboring unit to the south, the 276th
Volks Grenadier Division. 7
Before daylight on 6 February, an
infantry battalion plucked from the vi-
cinity of Habscheid and the 326th’s en-
gineer battalion, a force totaling about
450 men, counterattacked at Brand-
scheid. For the Americans, the counter-
attack could have come at no more
inopportune time. A few hours earlier,
around midnight, a battalion of the 90th
Division’s 358th Infantry had moved
toward Brandscheid to assume control
from the 22d Infantry. I t was a memo-
rably miserable night—cold, black, half-
raining, half-sleeting. After walking
almost four miles, the men arrived in
Brandscheid at 0430, thoroughly soaked.
The relief of the 22d Infantry was in
process when the Germans struck.
Hitting from the south, the Germans
quickly stove in the 22d Infantry’s line,
shattered Company K, and penetrated
into the village. While individual rifle-
men and the crews of the three tank
destroyers fought on in the center of the
village, Company L, the only unit whose
relief had been completed, counterat-
tacked. I n a little over two hours the
confused fight came to an end. More than
150 Germans surrendered.
Abortive as the Germans thrust
proved, it caused substantial casualties.
The relieving battalion of the 358th In-
fantry lost only 9 men, but the 3d Bat-
talion, 22d Infantry, had 12 men killed,
98 wounded, and 38 missing: some of the
missing, who had been cut off in pill-
boxes outside the village, later rejoined
their companies.
7 In addition to German sources previously cited,
see MS # B–561, 326th Volks Grenadier Division,
26 J anuary–17 April 1945 (Generalmajor Erwin
Kaschner, CG).
90 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
After waiting through the morning to
make sure Brandscheid was secure, two
battalions of the 22d Infantry resumed
the attack at noon, moving east from the
crossroads above Brandscheid to take the
first row of villages beyond the Schnee
Eifel. Here i n September another bat-
talion of the 4th Division had run into
trouble after neglecting to take high
ground while advancing down a valley
to cross the little Mon Creek. This time
strength was at hand to do both jobs at
once, and what was left of the 326th
Volks Grenadier Division could have
little effect on the outcome. Except for
artillery fire, the Germans fought back
feebly. The same was true on the Schnee
Eifel where the 8th Infantry continued
to roll up the pillbox line to the north-
east and established contact with the 87th
Division.
The 4th Division’s success on 6 Feb-
ruary boded well for the future, par-
ticularly when considered in context
with an event of early morning on the
south flank of the corps where, south-
west of Habscheid, contingents of the
11th Armored Division had attacked the
West Wall.
Scheduled to begin before dawn on
6 February, the 11th Armored Division
barely struggled into position on time.
The thaw and freeze, rain and snow,
constant since 1 February, had turned
roads into quagmires in some places and
in others had glazed them with mud and
ice. So great was the traffic congestion
during the march that few of the divi-
sion’s tanks could make it forward, thus
leaving the first assignment to the ar-
mored infantry. The enemy fortunately
had no planes in the air to take advan-
tage of the long columns of vehicles
stalled bumper to bumper. Nothing was
lost but tempers and sleep.
Even more than the attacks of the
other divisions of the VI I I Corps, that
of the 11th Armored Division would
benefit from striking along the enemy’s
interarmy boundary. From a point just
south of Habscheid, the front was the
responsibility of the Seventh Army’s
XIII Corps, but the volks grenadier di-
vision charged with the defense was so
acutely short of men that a portion of
the line close to the boundary could be
defended only by outposts.
Beginning at 0400, shortly before the
German counterthrust at Brandscheid,
two dismounted armored infantry bat-
talions moved abreast from Heckhu-
scheid, southwest of Habscheid, toward
Losenseifen Hill (Hill 568), an eminence
bristling with pillboxes that had been a
key objective of an American division
in September. No artillery preparation
preceded the move. I n the darkness, the
Germans in the few pillboxes that were
manned hardly knew what hit them. By
0830 the armored infantrymen com-
pletely controlled Losenseifen Hill in a
penetration a mile and a half deep into
the West Wall.
The successes of 6 February meant
that the VIII Corps had breached the
West Wall on a front of approximately
eleven miles, prompting the corps com-
mander, General Middleton, to acceler-
ate and broaden the attack. Urging the
4th and 90th Divisions to increase the
tempo of their thrusts, he told the 87th
Division and the 11th Armored to dis-
regard previously assigned objectives and
“continue on through.” 8 The armor
was to advance beyond the corps to high
8 4th Div J nl, 6 Feb 45.
THE DRIVE ON PRUEM 91
ground some four miles southwest of
Losenseifen Hill, there to help the
neighboring III Corps to get across the
Our River and into its section of the
West Wall.
German Countermeasures
General Middleton's directive actually
would have little practical effect. On 7
February the inevitable slowness of clear-
ing pillboxes, combined with the local
German countermeasures, provided the
Germans an additional twenty-four
hours to ready other steps to oppose the
attack. Only on the left wing of the 4th
Division was the defense still soft. There
two battalions of the 8th Infantry de-
scended the slopes of the Schnee Eifel
and advanced almost unopposed as
much as two miles, crossed the upper
reaches of the Mon Creek, and reached
the west bank of the Mehlen Creek.
On the north the 87th Division spent
the day clearing pillboxes. The 11th
Armored Division on the south did the
same, postponing any major effort to
execute its new mission until the adja-
cent regiment of the 90th Division came
abreast.
It was in the center that the hard
fighting took place as the 22d, 357th, and
358th Regiments pushed attacks toward
Pruem and Pronsfeld. None could gain
more than a mile, and all had to fight
off a number of small but determined
counterattacks launched by conglomer-
ate units, anything Generals Lucht and
Felber could find-remnants of division
engineer battalions, local security forces,
and the like. I n only one case would the
counterattacks cause genuine concern,
but they would materially delay the
advance nonetheless.
Attacking southeast along the Hab-
scheid-Pronsfeld road, the 357th Infan-
try intended to slip one battalion in the
darkness past Hill 510 to take a second
height, Hill 511. Another battalion was
to follow to seize the bypassed hill.
I t failed to work out that way. Con-
trol proved difficult in the dark, and the
approach march was slow. Daylight and
with it enemy fire caught the two bat-
talions strung out along the highway,
the point of the leading battalion still
short of Hill 511. Fire from the first hill,
thick with pillboxes, split the column.
The fire isolated most of the leading
battalion in an open saddle between the
two hills for the entire day. The other
battalion finally cleared the pillboxes on
Hill 510 but was unable to cross open
ground to come to the support of the
leading battalion until after dark. Only
then were the men able to occupy Hill
511.
The 358th Infantry meanwhile
launched a three-pronged attack out of
Brandscheid. Moving southeast early on
7 February, the 3d Battalion had little
trouble taking Hill 521, a wooded height
on the west bank of the Mon Creek. On
the other hand, both the ad Battalion,
clearing pillboxes between the other two
units, and the 1st came under consider-
able fire and counted their successes not
in yards gained but in pillboxes reduced.
The 1st Battalion proceeded methodi-
cally about its task, using tanks and tank
destroyers as a base of fire to button up
the pillboxes, and by dark had cleared
ten and taken about eighty prisoners.
The ad Battalion moved much more
slowly, partly because the men found
many camouflaged pillboxes not pre-
viously reported, partly because the Ger-
mans took cover in the concrete forts
92
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
during preparatory artillery firing, then
rushed outside as the shelling stopped
to oppose the infantry from foxholes and
trenches.
At noon, with the 3d Battalion already
on Hill 521 and the 2d still only a few
yards out of Brandscheid, the regimental
commander, Lt. Col. J acob W. Bealke,
J r., ordered the 3d Battalion to send a
force from Hill 521 westward against
the flank of the defenders on Hill 519.
Finding no covered route to the hills,
the battalion commander asked for a
delay until tanks could arrive and night
provide concealment.
At dusk Colonel Bealke sent a five-
man patrol to search for the best route
to the hill, but mortar and small arms
fire quickly killed three of the men,
prompting the other two to return. A
larger patrol from Company I followed
with orders to take the hill, if possible,
but shortly after emerging from the
woods and starting up Hill 519, these
men also drew fire and scattered. Not
until daylight the next morning was the
battalion to try a full-blooded attack.
Through this same day, the 22d In-
fantry, already in rear of the West Wall,
was having i ts problems too, not with
pillboxes but with counterattacks. The
2d Battalion of the 22d took Am Kopf
(Hill 554), a piece of dominating
ground just east of the Mon Creek,
which had been the farthest point of ad-
vance in this sector in September. In
early afternoon the Germans knocked
the battalion off the hill, but the Ameri-
cans recaptured it just before dark with
a reserve company. Another company of
the 2d Battalion entered Obermehlen,
just over a half mile to the east, but
before the end of the day was in “a hell
of a fight” there with a company of
Germans supported by three tanks. 9
A few hundred yards to the southwest
the 22d Infantry’s 1st Battalion also got
across the Mon Creek and onto high
ground just short of Niedermehlen, but
persistent counterattacks denied further
advance. The regimental commander
sent the 3d Battalion to back up the 2d,
prepared to counterattack if necessary to
save the beleaguered company in Ober-
mehlen.
The regiment had 62 casualties dur-
ing the day. Late in the afternoon the
commander, Col. Charles T. Lanham,
reported: “We are . . . [now] a very
serious threat to Pruem. The Germans
may be building up a very big thing
against us.” 10
The “big thing” was the 2d Panzer
Division—which sounded more formi-
dable than it actually was—plus a shift
in boundary that would eliminate the
problem of divided command that had
plagued the Germans since the day the
VIII Corps began its attack. Both meas-
ures were to take effect the next day,
8 February.
Impressed by the presence of the
American Third Army across the Our
in Luxembourg, higher German com-
manders had continued to be concerned
lest an American attack hit the Eifel
even as the Germans hurried resources
northward to meet the expected Allied
main effort on the Cologne plain. Yet
when the VI I I Corps did attack on 4
February, immediate identification of
only the 4th Division had led the Ger-
mans to ascribe “only local significance”
to the strike . 11 By 6 February, when two
9 22d Inf J nl, 1 Feb 45,
10 Ibid.
11 MS # B–123 (Gersdorff).
THE DRIVE ON PRUEM
93
more infantry divisions and the 11th
Armored had been identified, the danger
became obvious.
At this point the army group com-
mander, Field Marshal Model, shifted
the Seventh Army boundary northward
to eliminate the nuisance of responsi-
bility divided with the Fifth Panzer
Army. He also permitted unrestricted
use of the Seventh Army’s reserve, the
2d Panzer Division.
Given a free hand, the Seventh Army
commander, General Brandenberger,
elected to reinforce the threatened sec-
tor not only with the panzer division but
also with two Kampfgruppen—all that
that was left—of the two volks grenadier
divisions, the 276th and 340th. These
he shifted into the sector of the XIII
Corps from the adjoining corps to the
south, even though continued identifi-
cation of a U.S. armored division in
Luxembourg indicated that the Third
U.S. Army soon might launch another
thrust farther south.
Brandenberger also directed north-
ward from the Seventh Army’s left wing
a Kampfgruppe of the 352d Volks
Grenadier Division. Felber’s XIII Corps
thus would contain Kampfgruppen of
four volks grenadier divisions, the 5th
Parachute Division, and the panzer divi-
sion. The corps would have in addition a
separate armored battalion equipped
with Tiger tanks. Counting vehicles of
this battalion, of the panzer division,
and of occasional guns in the volks gren-
adier divisions, the XIII Corps would
have approximately seventy serviceable
tanks and assault guns.
For the Americans, the added Ger-
man strength was all too apparent on 8
February. The only notable advance was
in the north where the 87th Division’s
345th Infantry, moving before daylight,
seized a village on the upper reaches of
the Pruem River. On the south flank
the 359th Infantry cleared bypassed pill-
boxes in the 90th Division’s zone, but
enough of a gap still existed between
the 90th Division and the 11th Armored
Division to discourage the reluctant
armor again from starting its drive to
the southeast.
Hard fighting once more was the or-
der of the day in the center where the
arrival of the 2d Panzer Division made a
clear impact. The 4th Division’s 8th In-
fantry, which had reached the Mon
Creek the day before against little op-
position, had to fight all through the 8th
and into the 9th to clear the village of
Gondenbrett. On the regiment’s right,
two small counterattacks hit the com-
pany of the 22d Infantry in Obermehlen,
while another struck Am Kopf Hill, west
of the village. These delayed the 22d
Infantry’s own attack until shortly past
noon on the 8th. I n the afternoon the
2d and 3d Battalions set out to clear the
last houses of Obermehlen and open
slopes to the south, whereupon the 2d
Battalion tried to cross the Mehlen Creek
in order to take high ground between the
creek and the settlement of Tafel,
whence most of the counterattacks ap-
peared to be coming.
Swollen by the thaw to a width of
fifteen feet in some places, the Mehlen
Creek proved a major obstacle. A few
men of the 2d Battalion found fords;
others stepped into deep water and had
to swim for it. Except for the weapons
platoon, which was cut to pieces by ma-
chine gun fire during the crossing, most
of Company G nevertheless made the far
bank. The platoons advanced halfway up
the high ground against a surprising lack
94 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
of opposition and there prepared to de-
fend in expectation of reinforcement
after dark. The stage was unwittingly
set for a repetition of a reverse that had
happened to another company of the
same division five months earlier only a
few hundred yards away on the east bank
of the Mon Creek.
The men of Company G had no heavy
weapons—only their M1’s and BAR’s.
These and their radios as well were
soaked. They had salvaged only one ba-
zooka, for which they had only one
rocket, and it misfired. Company F,
which was to have followed, bogged
down under enemy fire west of the creek.
That was the situation when shortly
before dark Germans of the 2d Panzer
Division attacked in company strength
with three to five tanks in support. The
men of Company G had little alternative
but to fall back across the creek in a
sauve qui peut.
The 8th of February was a costly day
for the 22d Infantry. Losses exceeded a
hundred. Seventeen were known dead.
The story was much the same with the
357th and 358th Regiments of the 90th
Division. Although the 358th absorbed
relatively little punishment from enemy
fire, the regiment still could not solve
the problem of the open approaches to
Hill 519. The wind was in the wrong
direction for using smoke, and artillery
could not neutralize the enemy in con-
crete shelters. By the close of the day the
2d Battalion had cleared a few more
pillboxes and had maneuvered into posi-
tion in the woods on Hill 521, ready to
hit Hill 519 in conjunction with the 3d
Battalion, but the attack would have to
await another day.
The 357th Infantry had no better luck
at Hill 511 to the southwest. There, in
early morning, a counterattack by con-
tingents of the 352d Volks Grenadier Di-
vision hit Company K on the hill.
Company I, mounted on tanks, hurried
forward to help. Thus began a daylong
fight in which the 3d Battalion in par-
ticular suffered. Driven off Hill 511, the
battalion recaptured it before the day
was out but was unable to advance be-
yond. Fire of all kinds beat in on the men
from three sides. One supporting tank
destroyer was knocked out by direct fire:
two tanks were lost.
For the next two days, 9 and 10 Feb-
ruary, hard fighting would continue al-
most everywhere except on the extreme
flanks, with the 22d Infantry, the focal
unit in the drive, coming in for the
bloodiest fighting. Yet for all the diffi-
culties imposed, the Germans clearly
would have to muster considerably more
strength than that already committed if
Pruem and the west bank of the Pruem
River were to be denied much longer.
Although what happened to the 4th
Division continued to show striking simi-
larities to the division’s earlier experi-
ence in this same sector, one noteworthy
difference between the two engagements
was apparent. I n September, when a
company had fallen back from the high
ground just beyond the Mon Creek, the
4th Division’s regiments had been spent,
all reserves committed. When on 8 Feb-
ruary Company G, 22d Infantry, re-
treated from beyond the Mehlen Creek,
both the 8th and 22d Regiments still
were strong, the 8th particularly, and
the division commander still had a re-
serve in the uncommitted 12th Infantry.
The day of 9 February opened auspi-
ciously for the 8th Infantry when one
battalion moved against only sporadic
resistance into a village on the Pruem
THE DRIVE ON PRUEM
95
River a little over a mile east of Gonden-
brett. Yet when another battalion at-
tempted to turn south to take a village
on the road to Pruem, the opposition
suddenly stiffened. The explanation was
to be found in that the regiment had
shifted its attack from the relatively un-
defended left flank of the Fifth Panzer
Army into the Seventh Army’s sector and
the domain of the 2d Panzer Division.
The immediate task still facing the
22d Infantry on 9 February was to re-
capture the high ground between the
Mehlen Creek and Tafel so that the
village of Niedermehlen in turn might
be taken and the main road to Pruem
opened. The regiment’s plan was to
attack with the 1st Battalion across the
creek, then to converge on Niedermehlen
from two sides with its other two bat-
talions.
Because road conditions precluded
bringing up bridging equipment, the 4th
Division’s engineers decided to get the
1st Battalion across the creek on an im-
provised log bridge. By 0930 the bridge
was in and two companies began to cross.
Both these had made it when, within ten
to fifteen minutes of the first man’s cross-
ing, an enemy machine gun opened fire
up the creek valley from the south. This
forced the third company to cover. Dur-
ing the next five hours, fifteen men fell
while trying to brave the machine gun
fire. Every effort to knock out the Ger-
man gunner failed.
Companies A and C in the meantime
made their way up the high ground and
dug in to defend. Although more numer-
ous than the three platoons of Company
G the day before, they were little better
off. Without tanks and with the only
supply road—that through Niedermeh-
len—in enemy hands, they made no
attempt to push farther.
At 1300 the enemy again sought a de-
cision on the high ground. With five
tanks and two companies of infantry,
the Germans struck. I n an hour Com-
pany A had shot all its bazooka rockets
but had two tanks to show for them. Still
neither the 1st Battalion’s reserve com-
pany nor supporting tanks could get
across the Mehlen Creek to help. Shells
from German tanks plowed into the 2d
Battalion in Obermehlen, disorganizing
one company there. “Krauts,” the 2d
Battalion reported, “[are] all over the
place.” 12 Yet up on the hill Companies
A and C with the help of intensive shell-
ing by the 44th Field Artillery Battalion
absorbed the shock of the enemy thrust,
taking severe casualties but giving no
ground.
The 3d Battalion meanwhile had cir-
cled west of Niedermehlen, and even
before the Germans struck at Companies
A and C had attempted with the aid of
a platoon of tanks and another of tank
destroyers to push into the village. Fire
from at least three German tanks or
assault guns halted every attempt.
An inconclusive fire fight continued
through the afternoon until Companies
A and C had defeated the counterattack
beyond the creek. At that point, behind
a TOT 13 fired by four battalions of ar-
tillery, companies of the 2d and 3d
Battalions pressed into Niedermehlen.
Resistance collapsed, and within two
hours the village was clear, a hundred
Germans captured. The day’s fighting
cost the 22d Infantry 121 men, most of
12 22d Inf J nl, 9 Feb 45.
13 TOT stands for time on target, a method of
timing the fire of artillery pieces in various loca-
tions to fall on a target simultaneously.
96 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
them lost on the high ground east of the
Mehlen Creek.
Even as these events occurred, the 4th
Division commander, General Blakeley,
committed his reserve, the 12th Infantry,
to take a village off the 22d Infantry’s
right flank. The regiment accomplished
its task with little difficulty and the next
day, 10 February, reached the west bank
of the Pruem River southwest of Pruem.
The Final Phase
The 22d Infantry’s task also was near
completion, though remnants of the 2d
Panzer Division with their backs to the
Pruem River still fought hard for at
least every other yard of ground. On 10
February the 1st Battalion engaged in a
bitter house-to-house fight to clear Tafel
and again had to repel a tank-supported
counterattack. The 3d Battalion moved
more easily to occupy high ground di-
rectly west of Pruem. During the day
another seventy-three men were killed or
wounded. Although the 22d Infantry
was at the threshold of its objective, the
town of Pruem, the regiment would
arrive there nearly spent. Reluctant to
commit individual replacements during
the battle, the regimental commander
doubted that his thinned and tired forces
would have the strength for another
house-to-house struggle the next day. 14
On 9 and 10 February the 90th Di-
vision also advanced, slowly at first, but
with a dash on the second day as the
enemy in the north of the division’s zone
fell back behind the Pruem River. When
the Germans withdrew from Hill 519 on
9 February, the 358th Infantry followed,
then the next day broke free behind the
14 22d Inf J nl, 10 Feb 45.
last of the West Wall pillboxes to take
high ground along the west bank of the
Pruem. The 357th Infantry at the same
time pushed about a mile south of Hill
511 in what was in effect flank protection
for the 358th Infantry, while the third
regiment, the 359th. cleared the last of
the gap between the infantry and the
armor on Losenseifen Hill. For the most
part, during these two days the Germans
were content to sting the attackers with
mortar and artillery fire.
Operations at this point entered a new
phase, dictated by an uncompromising
tyrant called logistics. Not built for
heavy military traffic, the roads of Bel-
gium and Luxembourg had literally dis-
integrated under a combination of
alternate freeze and thaw, daily rains and
floods, and the coming and going of big
tanks, trucks, and guns. The entire engi-
neer strength of the VI I I Corps was
barely sufficient to keep the most essen-
tial supply routes open. I n a few days
the 22d Infantry was to report that with
all roads to the regiment’s rear impass-
able, nothing remained in the forward
ammunition supply point. Some units of
the VI I I Corps had to be supplied by
airdrops.
As early as 8 February, General Mid-
dleton, as eager as anybody in the Third
Army to get on with the attack, felt
impelled to suggest to General Patton
that he call off the offensive until the
road situation improved. 15 The next day,
9 February, Patton agreed that when the
corps reached the Pruem River, the at-
tackers might desist and all units dig in
for defense.
For the 4th Division this order was
qualified by instructions to watch for
15 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 239.
THE DRIVE ON PRUEM
97
DROPPING SUPPLIES BY PARACHUTE TO THE 4TH DIVISION
any enemy withdrawal, and if one oc-
curred to “jump on it.” 16 When prison-
ers on the 10th reported the Germans
evacuating Pruem, General Blakeley
took advantage of the qualification to
continue the attack into the town. De-
spite its losses, the 22d Infantry fought
into the fringes on the 11th and the next
day occupied the rubble that Pruem had
become.
It was the condition of the roads that
stopped the VI I I Corps, but even had
the roads held up the attack would have
come to a halt on 10 February. The VI I I
16 22d Inf J nl, 10 Feb 45.
Corps had run out the period of grace
granted with the general standfast or-
ders of 1 February, and a new condition
thwarted for the moment any subterfuge
Patton might have attempted to change
matters. On 10 February General Brad-
ley ordered Patton to give up head-
quarters of the III Corps to the First
Army, which meant that the VI I I Corps
would have to assume responsibility for
General Millikin’s sector. Although Gen-
eral Middleton would inherit one of the
two divisions of the III Corps, the new
responsibility still would involve consid-
erable adjustment and reorganization.
98
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
The VIII Corps had achieved sub-
stantially the objectives set. The corps
had made a clean penetration of the West
Wall, and three out of four divisions had
reached the Pruem River. Pruem itself
was in hand. General Middleton thus
would be free to turn his attention to
the south where other events, under way
since 6 February, invited participation
by the VIII Corps.
For to the south General Patton had
launched another of the probing attacks
authorized by the decision of 1 February.
The objective of the attack was limited—
Bitburg, the other major road center in
the western Eifel, eighteen miles south-
west of Pruem; but Patton had more in
mind than Bitburg. He was, he hoped,
kindling a flame that eventually would
become a full-fledged fire carrying the
Third Army all the way to the Rhine.
CHAPTER VI
Bitburg: and the Vianden Bulge
When Patton’s Third Army drew up
to the German frontier at the end of
J anuary, the army sector stretched for
more than a hundred miles from the
Losheim Gap in the north to the north-
western corner of the Saar industrial
region, thence southeastward to a point
on the Saar River midway between Saar-
lautern and Saarbruecken. From north
to south, the Third Army’s order of bat-
tle was the VIII Corps (Middleton), I I I
Corps (Millikin) , XI I Corps (Eddy),
and XX Corps (Walker) .
Meandering northeastward from
Trier, the Moselle River formed a nat-
ural division within the Third Army’s
zone. North of the Moselle lay the Eifel,
inhospitable from the standpoint of ter-
rain but inviting nevertheless because it
screened the Rhine city of Koblenz and
several Rhine bridges. South of the
Moselle, the XX Corps faced the consid-
erable obstacle of the Saar River plus
the strongest network of concrete fortifi-
cations along the entire length of the
West Wall. Severely restricted in the
forces that might be committed to an
offensive, General Patton had chosen the
Eifel, for all its drawbacks.
Once the VIII Corps jumped off on 4
February to take Pruem, Patton intended
that the XII Corps begin its attack on
Bitburg the night of 6 February. Appar-
ently on the assumption that the Ger-
mans caught in the middle of these two
drives would withdraw when threatened
with outflanking on north and south, he
directed the I I I Corps in the center, from
Luetzkampen to Vianden, to participate
at first only with a series of minor prob-
ing attacks designed to prevent the Ger-
mans from shifting strength to north and
south.
Like the attack of the VIII Corps on
Pruem, the maneuver by the XI I Corps
against Bitburg had been tried once be-
fore-in September, by a single armored
division, the 5th. At the end of the great
pursuit across France and Belgium, the
5th Armored had attempted to take Bit-
burg by utilizing a semblance of a ter-
rain corridor extending northeast from
the village of Wallendorf, about halfway
between Vianden and Echternach; but
lacking reserves, the armor eventually
had fallen back into Luxembourg. 1
For the February attack General Pat-
ton approved a strike along a front of
some seven and a half miles from Wallen-
dorf southeast to Echternach. ( Map IV)
Although the same semblance of a ter-
rain corridor northeast of Wallendorf
still would be used for the final drive to
Bitburg, the advance would be attempted
only after wooded high ground southeast
of Wallendorf, lying between the Sauer
and Pruem Rivers at their confluence
1 MacDonald, T h e Siegfried Li ne Campaign.
100 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
near Echternach, had been taken and the
corps south flank thus secured.
Before General Eisenhower’s decision
of 1 February, General Patton had in-
tended that the XII Corps attack on 4
February in order to tie in with the
Euskirchen offensive. Having protested
the target date on the basis that Patton
had no appreciation of “time and space
factors,” the XII Corps commander, Gen-
eral Eddy, was pleased when Eisen-
hower’s general standfast orders resulted
in a two-day postponement. 2 Unfortu-
nately, the postponement virtually coin-
cided with the unseasonable thaw, and
the XI I Corps would find it difficult to
be ready even by the night of 6 February.
By the 2d many motor pools and supply
depots already were under water, and
rapidly rising rivers threatened tactical
bridges. By the 4th the level of the
Moselle had risen over thirteen feet and
ripped away floating bridges uniting the
XII and XX Corps. The river that the
XI I Corps had to cross, the Sauer, was a
swollen torrent.
From the German point of view, the
raging river was about the strongest de-
terrent to American success that com-
manders in this sector could count on.
The remnants of two panzer divisions,
which the U.S. Third Army G–2, Col.
Oscar W. Koch, believed still with the
Seventh Army, already had moved north;
the only remaining armored reserve, the
2d Panzer Division, would be used to
counter the attack on Pruem before the
XI I Corps operation got underway. The
situation in the Seventh Army’s center
and on its left wing was thus much the
same as that confronting the XIII Corps
2 Quotation is from Patton, War As I Knew It,
p. 234.
farther north—nothing left but weak
volks grenadier divisions. The only ex-
ception was the 212th Volks Grenadier
Division, located on the extreme left
wing of the army near the confluence of
the Sauer with the Moselle, protecting
the city of Trier. The 212th had fallen
back to the West Wall ahead of the oth-
ers and thus had gained time to refit and
reorganize. 3
With the northern boundary just over
a mile southeast of Vianden, the LXXX
Corps under General Beyer was destined
to come under attack first. From north to
south, Beyer’s divisions, all volks grena-
dier units, were the 79th, 352d, and the
relatively strong 212th. Before the new
American attack began, the 352d would
be lost to the effort to protect Pruem.
Any weakening of the already thin line
in the south worried the Germans. Rund-
stedt himself, the Commander in Chief
West, remained for a long time seriously
concerned over the possibility of an
American advance up the general line of
the Moselle on either side of Trier. 4 Yet
the Germans there would have the ad-
vantage of the West Wall, which was
particularly strong on either side of
Trier, the early thaw with its rains and
swollen rivers, and the terrain. The Our
and Sauer Rivers in the sector faced by
the XII Corps run through sharp gorges
with clifflike sides sometimes 600 feet
high. The four-mile stretch from Bollen-
dorf to Echternach, where the U.S. XI I
Corps would assault, was further pro-
tected by large wooded stretches close up
to the Sauer.
3 The German story is based principally on MS
# B–123 (Gersdorff), as confirmed by German
situation maps for the period.
4 MS # C–020 (Maj Percy E. Schramm).
BITBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE
101
Crossing the Sauer
Available to General Eddy for the Bit-
burg attack were three infantry divisions
(the veteran 5th and 80th, the inexperi-
enced 76th) and a veteran armored di-
vision (the 4th). To make the main
effort on the right, Eddy chose the 5th
Division (General Irwin), veteran of
many a river crossing. Aided by an
attached regimental combat team (the
417th) of the 76th Division to protect
the right flank, the 5th was to cross be-
tween Bollendorf and Echternach to take
the first hill mass, not quite a mile be-
yond the Sauer. The hill would afford
control of the ground lying in an angle
formed by confluence of the Sauer and
the Pruem Rivers downstream from
Echternach. With one flank secured by
the Pruem River, the 5th Division then
could turn north to gain more open
ground southwest of Bitburg before
jumping the Pruem and advancing on
the main objective. The 80th Division
(General McBride) meanwhile was to
cross the Sauer from Wallendorf to Bol-
lendorf and advance as far north as
Mettendorf, five miles northeast of Wal-
lendorf, to protect the left flank of the
main effort. Each of the 80th’s assault
regiments received an armored infantry
battalion of the 4th Armored Division as
reinforcement, and each of the five as-
sault regiments in the corps drew the
support of a full engineer battalion. 5
As engineers and riflemen moved
down to the Sauer on the night of 6
5 XII Corps FO 14, 3 Feb 45; 5th Div FO 16 and
80th Div FO 30, both dated 4 Feb 45. Detailed
combat interviews supplement official records of
both the 5th and 80th Divisions. See also Fifth
Division Historical Section, Th e Fifth Infantry
Division in the ETO (Atlanta: Albert Love Enter-
prises, 1945).
GENERAL EDDY
February, a fitful rain turned to light
snow. Seeking surprise, supporting artil-
lery provided only moderate fire, di-
rected at known enemy positions. Even
this light fire produced some German
response, most of it directed close along
the water line.
From the first the main enemy was the
river itself, swollen to double its normal
90-foot width, its current a turbulent
twelve miles an hour. Salvaged from a
captured Luftwaffe depot, the little in-
flatable rubber boats in which most of
the assault companies were to cross would
fight an unequal battle against the
churning water.
When the first boats pushed out into
the river some capsized almost immedi-
ately. Others rampaged out of control far
down the stream or careened crazily back
against the bank. Yet some survived.
These had reached midstream when here
and there lone rifle shots rang out. As if
102
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
CROSSING SITE ON THE SAUER RIVER NEAR ECHTERNACH
the shots were signals, the entire east
bank of the river appeared to come to
life. Brilliant flares lighted the scene.
Even those men who survived the treach-
erous current could scarcely hope to
escape the crisscross of fire from auto-
matic weapons.
Only eight men—one boatload—of
each assault regiment of the 5th Division
reached the far shore. Continuing Ger-
man fire denied reinforcement.
It was somewhat better at Echternach,
where Companies A and B formed the
assault wave of the 417th Infantry, pro-
tecting the 5th Division’s right flank. Yet
there too, many of the boats met disaster.
A round of mortar or artillery fire hit
one boat broadside, sinking it in a flash
and sending the occupants with their
heavy equipment floundering helplessly
downstream. Another boat began to drift
directly toward a German machine gun
spitting fire from the bank. Frantically,
the men in the boat tried to change their
course by grabbing at rushes along the
water’s edge, but in the process, they
swamped the frail craft. Shedding as
much equipment as they could, the men
BITBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE 103
plunged into the icy water. Some made
it to the bank. The current swept others
downstream.
I n such a melee, squad, platoon, and
company organization went for naught.
Thrown helter-skelter against the Ger-
man-held bank, the men tried to reor-
ganize but with little success. A house set
afire on the Luxembourg side of the river
lit the landscape with an eerie flame that
aided German gunners. In the end it
would be determined that 56 men and 3
officers of Company A had made it, 52
men and 2 officers of Company B; but
no one could have arrived at any figures
during the early hours. Before daylight
came, most of Company C also got across,
but nobody else. Only after nightfall
brought concealment were crossings re-
sumed.
I n the 80th Division’s sector near Wal-
lendorf the attack began at 0300 the
morning of 1 February, two hours later
than the main assault. With surprise
hardly possible in view of the general
alert occasioned by the earlier assaults,
the men of the 80th smoked likely cross-
ing sites with shells from attached chemi-
cal mortars, thereby drawing enemy fire
to the smoke, then began to cross the
river elsewhere. The stratagem helped
considerably and casualties were “not ex-
ceptionally heavy”; 6 during the first
twenty-four hours the bulk of at least six
companies gained the far bank.
Of the five attacking regiments, the
two of the 5th Division had the worst of
it. Although the two little separate eight-
man groups hardly represented even a
toehold, the division commander, Gen-
eral Irwin, determined to treat them as
such. With no further need to withhold
6 80th Div AAR, Feb 45.
artillery support, he directed all available
artillery battalions to mass their fire be-
yond the crossing site. 7 Tanks and tank
destroyers he told to move boldly for-
ward to take German pillboxes under
direct observed fire. The corps com-
mander, General Eddy, personally or-
dered tank destroyers armed with 90-mm.
pieces to go to the water’s edge. He also
told General Irwin to cross his regiments
in the 80th Division’s or 417th Infantry’s
sectors should those units establish firm
bridgeheads before the 5th Division
could get across. 8 Yet as night came on 7
February, the sixteen still were the only
men of the 5th Division on the German
side of the river.
Contingents of both the 80th Division
and the 417th Infantry meanwhile
achieved some success against the high
ground beyond the river. By nightfall of
the first day (7 February), a battalion
of the 80th Division held high ground
northeast of Wallendorf, a mile and a
half beyond the Sauer, and one company
was in Wallendorf. With a verve and
initiative often displayed by the inexperi-
enced, Companies A and B of the 417th
Infantry cleared pillbox after pillbox
and occupied a portion of the high
ground northeast of Echternach. There,
in later afternoon, three German tanks
and a small infantry force counter-
attacked, but Pfc. Lyle Corcoran knocked
out one tank with a bozooka, another
mired helpless in the mud, and a third
withdrew. That ended the threat.
The big problem still was the river.
Although all units had plans to put in
bridges once the first wave of riflemen
7 Between 0130 and 0600 divisional and corps ar-
tillery in the XII Corps fired 29,000 rounds. See
TUSA AAR.
8 XI I Corps msg file, 7 Feb 45.
104 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
was across, every effort to span the stream
failed. I n the 417th Infantry’s sector, the
160th Engineer Battalion tried three
times to anchor a cable across the river
for a footbridge, but the current severed
the first two and enemy machine gun fire
sank the boat carrying the third. Despair-
ing of success by this method, the engi-
neers constructed a bridge on the near
bank and tried to float it into position,
but the current soon made quick work
of it too.
Dependence on footbridges was one
reason the 5th Division’s right regiment,
the 11th Infantry, failed to get more than
eight men across the river. The regi-
ment’s assault plan was based on sending
only patrols by boat, then constructing
footbridges for the bulk of the infantry.
Every effort to put in the bridges failed.
The coming of night on 7 February
changed the situation but little. A few
more men of the 80th Division got across,
either in assault boats or by swimming
when the boats capsized, but frustration
continued generally to be everybody’s
lot.
Giving up hope of crossing during the
night and planning a new attempt the
next day, the 5th Division’s 10th Infantry
sent a boat to rescue its eight men from
the far bank, while the eight of the 11th
Infantry held fast. After a heavy machine
gun section of the 11th Infantry’s Com-
pany K and six boatloads of Company F
got across, contact was at last established
with the eight men who still remained on
the far bank. Still no one could claim
that the 5th Division possessed any kind
of workable holding beyond the Sauer.
Some time in the early hours of the
8th, three platoons of Company G, 417th
Infantry, and a heavy machine gun pla-
toon of Company H conquered the cur-
rent at Echternach, and before daylight
another fifteen boatloads of riflemen
made it. Yet as had happened to their
predecessors twenty-four hours earlier,
German fire and the raging river quickly
cut these men off from reinforcement
and supply.
The story would continue the same in
the XI I Corps for three more days, until
11 February when engineers at last suc-
ceeded in bridging the river. That the
weak and usually isolated units on the
far shore could hold their own and even
expand their positions was a testament to
the courage and tenacity of the men and
commanders concerned, plus the excel-
lent support they got from their artillery;
but it was a testament, too, to the general
ineffectiveness of their enemy. Although
the Germans might defend a position
doggedly and impose severe casualties on
the attacker before giving up, a passive
defense augmented by mortar and Nebel-
werfer fire was about all they could offer.
They simply had no reserves for deter-
mined counterattacks.
For the Americans it was an incredibly
difficult operation. The cliffs on the east
bank were no less precipitous whether a
man was attacking up them or merely
trying to manhandle a case of K rations
to hungry comrades at the top. The mud
was deep, the weather always wet and
cold. Trench foot and respiratory dis-
eases abounded, and evacuation across
the swollen Sauer was virtually impossi-
ble. German fire and the river greedily
consumed assault boats and bridging
equipment, and bringing up more over
the ruined roads of Luxembourg was a
slow process.
I n the end it was sheer power mixed
with determination and ingenuity that
did the job. Although the corps lost at
BI TBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE 105
least a dozen bridges to the river, others
at last were put in to stay. When two or
three engineers were unable to bring
back assault boats, six men did the job,
limiting the number of infantrymen who
could be carried but nevertheless gradu-
ally increasing the strength on the far
bank. The 5th Division used big search-
lights to illuminate the night crossings.
Pontons lashed together served as ferries
for vital heavy equipment. Moving up
close to the river, 155-mm. self-propelled
guns poured direct fire on German pill-
boxes. One battery alone destroyed eight
pillboxes in one 24-hour period. To re-
supply men of the 417th Infantry on
the heights above Echternach, fighter-
bombers dropped specially loaded belly
tanks. When these eluded the infantry-
men, artillery liaison planes braved small
arms fire to drop supplies with impro-
vised parachutes. Whenever weather per-
mitted, fighter-bombers of the XIX
Tactical Air Command roamed far and
wide, ready to strike at a moment’s notice
at any indication that the Germans were
reinforcing the sector.
By 1 1 February, when the first tactical
bridges were in, the 5th Division, includ-
ing the attached 417th Infantry, had
forged a bridgehead three miles wide and
a mile deep; but several hundred yards
of pillbox-studded terrain still separated
the bridgehead from the closest regiment
of the 80th Division. Nor had the two
assault regiments of the 80th Division yet
joined their holdings. On the other hand,
within the two divisions, thirteen infan-
try battalions were across the river.
Visiting the sector on 12 February,
General Patton was so appalled by the
condition of the roads and yet so con-
vinced that the crossings were no longer
in danger that he volunteered permission
to halt the attack for a day. 9 General
Eddy declined. The unremitting pres-
sure of infantry and artillery was having
a slow but inexorable effect; Eddy saw
no reason to check the momentum.
Had General Eddy been able to view
the situation through his adversary’s
eyes, he would have been even more
convinced that he had chosen the right
course. Once the Germans actually oc-
cupying the sector were rooted from
their pillboxes, little else would stand in
the way. Divining that the Echternach
thrust was the southern arm of a pincers
movement designed eventually to link
with the attack of the VI I I Corps on
Pruem, the Germans gambled that no
move would be made against Trier. They
shifted the south regiment of the 212th
Volks Grenadier Division from Trier to
assist the rest of the division. Although
Army Group B provided a weak Kampf-
gruppe of the 560th Volks Grenadier
Division—all that was left of that unit—
to replace the 212th’s southern regiment,
so critical was the situation around
Echternach that this Kampfgruppe too
had to be committed there. Beyond these
two units, no other reinforcements were
in prospect. 10
The only other step the Germans were
able to take immediately to help Beyer’s
LXXX Corps was to shift the right
boundary of the corps to the south to a
point just north of Wallendorf so that
the adjacent LI I I Corps (Rothkirch)
could bear some of the burden. Thus
once the 80th U.S. Division was across
the river and turned north, the opposi-
tion came from units of the LIII Corps.
Yet this corps had already been drained
of resources in efforts to shore up the
9 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 240.
10 MS # B–123 (Gersdorff).
106 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
faltering XIII Corps in the fight to save
Pruem and could provide little more
than conglomerate artillery and antitank
units hastily converted to infantry roles. 11
The Germans nevertheless continued
to make a telling fight of it. So long as
they were able, with the help of the West
Wall, weather, terrain, and river, to re-
strict the size of the bridgehead, they
would at the same time restrict the
amount of power, including tanks, that
the Americans might bring to bear.
Six more days—12 through 17 Feb-
ruary—were to pass before the XI I Corps
could carve a full-fledged bridgehead
from the inhospitable terrain. On the
morning of the 12th the two assault regi-
ments of the 80th Division finally linked
their bridgeheads, and that evening the
two divisions also joined. After 11 Feb-
ruary, when the 417th Infantry reverted
to control of its parent division, units of
the 76th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen.
William R. Schmidt) began crossing the
river to assume defensive positions along
the Pruem as the 5th Division turned
north, but this was a slow process simply
because the 5th’s advance was slow.
On 14 February the 5th Division's
11th Infantry finally took Ernzen, south-
ernmost of the villages on the high
ground between the Sauer and the
Pruem, but only after artillery lined up
almost hub-to-hub on the other side of
the Sauer joined with fighter-bombers to
level the buildings. En route northward,
a battalion of the 2d Infantry fought its
way out of the woods as night came on
the 16th and entered Schankweiler,
thereby coming roughly abreast of the
80th Division, but the village was not
entirely in hand until the next day.
11 Ibid.; XII Corps G–2 Periodic Rpts.
Although the Germans in most places
fought with determination, they could
take credit for only part of the delay. The
condition of supply roads west of the
Sauer and continuing problems of get-
ting men and heavy equipment across
the swollen river accounted for much of
it. Without the little M29 cargo carrier
(Weasel) , a kind of full-tracked jeep,
vehicular traffic in the mud of the bridge-
head would have ground to a halt. Nor
did the 80th Division, in particular,
launch any large-scale attacks, concen-
trating instead on mopping up pockets
of resistance, jockeying for position on
high ground north and northeast of Wal-
lendorf, and building up strength in
supporting weapons and supplies before
making a major effort to expand and
break out of the bridgehead. 12 One un-
usual item of equipment introduced to
both the 5th and 80th Divisions in the
bridgehead was the T34 multiple rocket
launcher, a 60-tube cluster of 4.5-inch
rocket launchers mounted on a Sherman
tank. 13
The Vianden Bulge
The 80th Division was to begin its new
advance early on 18 February, but at first
it would be directed less toward capture
of Bitburg than toward helping elimi-
nate an enemy hold-out position lying
between the XI I Corps bridgehead and
the penetration of the VI I I Corps at
Pruem. While the VI I I Corps drove
south and southeast, the 80th Division
12 80th Div AAR, Feb 45.
13 For an evaluation of these weapons, see Con-
stance McLaughlin Green, Harry C. Thomson, and
Peter C. Roots, The Ordnance Department: Plan-
ning Munitions for War, UNITED STATES ARMY
IN WORLD WAR II (Washington, 1955). pp.
329–30.
BI TBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE
107
was to move north and northeast, the
two to join at the village of Mauel, on
the Pruem River equidistant from
Pruem and Bitburg.
The enemy’s hold-out position quickly
came to be known on the American side
as the Vianden bulge, after a town on the
Our. The bulge was some twenty-two
miles wide from north to south, from the
90th Division’s forward lines near Hab-
scheid to the 80th Division’s positions
north of Wallendorf. It was eleven to
thirteen miles deep, from the German
frontier along the Our to the Pruem. I t
encompassed some of the most rugged
terrain in the entire Eifel. A steep,
heavily wooded bluff capped by lime-
stone ledges marks the east bank of the
Our. Behind the bluff and the pillboxes
of the West Wall, the land alternately
rises and plunges in a series of high,
irregular ridges and deep ravines dotted
with thick stands of fir trees and laced
with twisting secondary roads.
German commanders responsible for
the Vianden bulge wanted to withdraw,
to exchange the extended, meandering
periphery of the bulge for a considerably
shorter line behind the Pruem River.
Since they lacked the strength to counter-
attack the American penetrations to
north and south, the bulge had little
tactical significance. Nor did the Ger-
mans have enough resources even to hold
the bulge for any appreciable time.
Once the boundary of the LIII Corps
was shifted southward to give Roth-
kirch’s troops some of the burden of the
bridgehead battle with the XI I U.S.
Corps, responsibility for the Vianden
bulge was split almost in half. Reduced
to two weak volks grenadier divisions
and a few conglomerate units, the LIII
Corps held the southern half; General
Felber’s XIII Corps, severely straitened
by the Pruem fighting, the northern half.
For all the desire of the corps com-
manders to withdraw, “Hitler, like a
small child, refused to part with even a
small portion of his toy, the West
Wall.” When General Felber broached
the subject of withdrawal to the Seventh
Ar my commander, General Branden-
berger, the army commander had to re-
fuse even though he personally favored
it. 15 Brandenberger himself had recom-
mended the same thing to Army Group
B, but Field Marshal Model, severely
piqued because Brandenberger had
failed to repulse the American drives,
was in no mood to agree even had Hit-
ler’s standfast orders not blocked the
way. Model already was contemplating
relief of the Seventh Ar my commander.
Strained relations between the army
and the army group commander came to
a head only two days after the Americans
opened their drive to eliminate the
bulge. At a meeting at the Seventh
Army’s forward headquarters on 20 Feb-
ruary, Model castigated Brandenberger
before his staff and relieved him. He
immediately elevated General Felber,
who was present, to command of the
Seventh Ar my.
If the disgrace of relief hurt Branden-
berger’s pride, it also may have saved his
life. Hardly had he left when an Ameri-
can bomb landed on the headquarters
building, killing or severely wounding
several staff officers. The chief of staff,
stripped of his clothing by the blast, in-
curred only a superficial head wound;
the new commander, General Felber,
who had just left the building for a fare-
14 MS # B–123 (Gersdorff).
15 MS # B–494 (Felber).
108
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
well tour of his XIII Corps, also incurred
a slight wound. 16
Upon Felber’s advancement, General-
leutnant Graf Ralph von Oriola assumed
command of the XIII Corps. After study-
ing the situation in his sector, Oriola
made the same recommendation to Fel-
ber that Felber had made to Branden-
berger—withdraw behind the Pruem.
The new Seventh Army commander
found himself in the uncomfortable po-
sition of having to refuse the very request
he himself had made a few days before. 17
Forced to deny a maneuver that he
actually endorsed, Felber devised a sim-
ple plan that assured him at least a
measure of operational control of his
army. Working through his chief of staff,
General Gersdorff, he told his subordi-
nate commanders they would in the fu-
ture receive two versions of all orders.
One would direct continued defense and
was to be filed in official records. The
other would give the order Felber ac-
tually intended; it was to be destroyed
after receipt. To justify withdrawals, op-
erational reports to higher headquarters
were to be falsified, all withdrawals of-
ficially to be made because of overwhelm-
ing American strength. 18
On the American side, neither the
bogging down of the VI I I Corps attack
because of crumbling supply roads nor
General Bradley’s order of 10 February
removing headquarters of the III Corps
from the Third Army was to be allowed
to thwart Patton’s offensive. Although
one division was to depart with the head-
quarters, the 6th Armored Division and
16 Interview, Maj Fred Meyer with Gersdorff,
28 J ul 53; MS # B–123 (Gersdorff).
17 MS # B–052, XIII Corps, 18 February–21
March 1945 (Oriola).
18 Interview, Meyer with Gersdorff, 26 J ul 53.
the 6th Cavalry Group were to remain
to be taken over by the VI I I Corps. With
two armored and three infantry divisions
and a cavalry group, the VI I I Corps
would be strong enough to help elimi-
nate the Vianden bulge, despite an
elongated front. Time and almost super-
human engineer efforts eventually would
correct the supply situation. The attack
was to begin on 18 February at the same
time the 80th Division of the XI I Corps
moved northeastward from Wallendorf.
The VI I I Corps commander, General
Middleton, planned to use only three of
his divisions, plus the cavalry group.
Shifting the 90th Division and the 11th
Armored westward to enable greater con-
centration within the 6th Armored Di-
vision’s sector along the Our, he directed
the 90th to drive southeastward from
Habscheid. The division was to gain the
Pruem River from Pronsfeld all the way
to the appointed contact point with the
XI I Corps at Mauel. Using only one
combat command at first, the 11th
Armored was to thrust due south to clear
a pie-shaped sector between the 6th
Armored and 90th Divisions, featured by
high ground overlooking the village of
Irrhausen on a relatively major east-west
road. Two days after the first attacks, the
6th Armored Division was to strike
southeastward from a small bridgehead
already established across the Our north
of the village of Dahnen, west of Irrhau-
sen. The 6th Cavalry Group (Col. Ed-
ward M. Fickett) meanwhile was to cross
the Our on the right flank of the 6th
Armored and clear the southwestern
corner of the bulge. Both armored di-
visions were to be pinched out as the
attacks of the cavalry and the 90th Di-
vision converged along the south bound-
ary of the corps.
BI TBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE
109
Moving before daylight on 18 Feb-
ruary without artillery preparation, both
the 90th Division and the 11th Armored
caught the Germans unprepared.
The more dramatic success was in the
center, where the 90th Division's 359th
Infantry struck through a thick belt of
West Wall pillboxes toward Kesfeld,
southwest of Losenseifen Hill, the domi-
nating eminence taken during the Pruem
offensive by contingents of the 11th
Armored Division. Bypassing pillboxes
in the darkness, Company I quickly
moved into Kesfeld. I t took only a short
fire fight to secure the village. Mean-
while, the 2d Batalion and the rest of
the 3d cleared forty-eight pillboxes on
the approaches to Kesfeld. The regi-
mental commanders and staffs of two
regiments of the 167th Volks Grenadier
Division and two battalion commanders
and their staffs were captured in their
bunks. Almost all of two companies also
were captured, and by the end of the day
more than 400 Germans were headed for
prisoner-of-war cages. 19
Carrying the burden of the attack for
the 11th Armored Division, the reserve
combat command had to fight harder but
in the end gained more ground than did
the 359th Infantry. I n CCR’s sector just
west of Kesfeld, no penetration of the
West Wall had yet been made; the attack
thus involved passing through concrete
dragon's teeth as well as pillboxes. Cov-
ered by fire from tanks, armored engi-
neers soon blasted a path through the
antitank obstacle, and tanks and armored
infantrymen poured through. The ad-
vance benefited considerably from the
fact that only hours before the attack a
regiment of the 276th Volks Grenadier
19 90th Div AAR, Feb 45.
Division had relieved contingents of the
340th Volks Grenadier Division, and the
newcomers were unfamiliar with the po-
sitions. By nightfall, some seventy-five
prisoners were in hand and the 55th
Armored Infantry Battalion held Leiden-
born, more than one-fourth the distance
to the final objective overlooking Irrhau-
sen. The armor spent much of the next
day consolidating its penetration.
The going meanwhile had been less
encouraging southeast of Habscheid
where the 358th Infantry almost a fort-
night earlier had learned respect for the
kind of opposition the Germans could
muster in the pillboxes and on the steep
hills along the Habscheid-Pronsfeld high-
way. Neither the 2d Battalion astride the
highway nor the 3d Battalion west of the
road gained more than a thousand yards
in the face of intense machine gun and
artillery fire.
Somewhat inexplicably, the bottom
dropped out of the enemy's defense along
that road early on the second day, 19
February. Hardly an hour of attack had
passed when the battalion west of the
road took its objective, the village of
Masthorn. An hour later the battalion
astride the highway took the last domi-
nating hill short of the Pruem River.
Neither battalion incurred a single cas-
ualty.
For all practical purposes, the 358th
Infantry had reached the Pruem and
might begin to pull out the bulk of its
forces to participate in a wheeling ma-
neuver that the division commander,
General Rooks, set in motion during the
afternoon of the 19th. When the 359th
Infantry had advanced a mile and a half
southeast of Kesfeld, then turned due
east toward the Pruem, General Rooks
sent his reserve regiment, the 357th In-
110
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
WELCOME TO GERMANY FROM THE 6TH ARMORED DIVISION
fantry, swinging southeast around the
359th’s right flank. Later he would com-
mit the 358th Infantry around the right
flank of the 357th to make a broader,
final swing southeast to the Pruem at
Mauel.
As this maneuver got underway on 20
February, the 6th Armored Division near
Dahnen began to break out of its little
bridgehead across the Our. Established
originally by CCB as a diversion for the
attack of the XII Corps on 6 February,
the bridgehead was about two miles wide
but less than a mile deep. It nevertheless
provided a basis for penetrating the West
Wall without having to attack the pill-
boxes frontally across the swollen Our
and up the east bank escarpment. 20
CCB made the first assault to break out
of the bridgehead, while CCA, west of
the Our and farther south opposite Das-
burg, staged a mock crossing of the river.
Beginning at 0645, artillery laid an in-
20 The 6th Armored Division, under the super-
vision of its commander, General Grow, published
an unusual history. Providing a day-by-day factual
account of all units, without embellishment, it is
an excellent source. See Combat Record of the
Sixth Armored Division (Germany, 1945). Action
in the 20 February attack also is covered by ex-
tensive combat interviews.
BITBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE
111
tensive preparation across CCB’s entire
front for twenty minutes, then lifted for
ten minutes in hope that the Germans
would move from their pillboxes into
field fortifications outside. Then for one
minute all the artillery switched to a
mammoth TOT on the first specific ob-
jective, a fortified hill a mile and a half
due north of Dahnen.
Close behind the artillery, dismounted
armored infantrymen organized into
special pillbox assault teams half a pla-
toon strong started up the hill, while
others organized as support fire teams
took the embrasures of the pillboxes un-
der small arms fire. As an assault team
neared a pillbox, a prearranged signal—
usually a colored smoke grenade—lifted
the support team’s fire. Equipped with
wire cutters, rocket launchers, and demo-
lition charges, the infantrymen closed in.
By 0835 the first pillbox had fallen, and
by noon seventeen pillboxes and the
crest of the hill were clear. So effective
was the method of attack that only one
man was lost during the day to small
arms fire. Of a total of 5 killed and 66
wounded during 20 February, almost all
were lost to mines.
Before daylight the next day, 21 Feb-
ruary, CCB struck again. While one
force expanded the bridgehead south to
take Dahnen, another drove southeast to
take the village of Daleiden and thereby
cut the major Dasburg-Irrhausen high-
way. I n midmorning at Dahnen, a rifle
platoon of the 9th Armored Infantry
Battalion mounted a platoon of medium
tanks and raced south, bypassing pill-
boxes, to invest Dasburg and clear a
crossing site over the Our for CCA. I n a
matter of minutes, the tank-mounted in-
fantry gained the village while two in-
fantry companies started south from
Dahnen as reinforcement, clearing pill-
boxes as they marched. By nightfall Das-
burg and the pillboxes standing sentinel
over the Our west of the village were
secure, but fire from German positions
south of Dasburg continued to deny CCA
passage over the river.
During these two days, the 90th Di-
vision continued to push steadily east
and southeast toward the Pruem River.
While the 359th Infantry on 21 February
approached the last two villages short of
the river, the 357th Infantry in its wheel-
ing maneuver overcame stanch resistance
on open slopes of towering high ground
around a crossroads settlement two miles
from the Pruem. An opportune strike by
fighter-bombers of the XI X Tactical Air
Command provided an assist. I n mid-
afternoon, with the situation apparently
opening up, General Rooks committed
the 358th Infantry on its wider wheeling
maneuver designed to reach the Pruem
at the contact point with the XI I Corps
at Mauel.
If any doubt remained that the enemy
defense was cracking, it rapidly dissipated
early the next morning, 22 February,
fifth day of the offensive. The 11th
Armored Division, for example, hereto-
fore primarily concerned with consoli-
dating its penetration of the West Wall,
dashed suddenly southward three miles
and occupied its final objective, the high
ground overlooking Irrhausen. A bat-
talion of the 358th Infantry on the outer
rim of the 90th Division’s wheel raced
southeast four miles to take a village only
three and a half miles from Mauel. One
squad of Company A alone took some
1 0 0 prisoners, most of them artillerymen
frantically trying to hitch their horses to
their pieces and escape. Breakthrough
everywhere, with the exception of the
112 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
southwestern corner of the bulge where
the light formation of the 6th Cavalry
Group still found the going sticky.
Reports of continued rapid advances
were coming in the next day, 23 Feb-
ruary, when the corps commander, Gen-
eral Middleton, sat down to lunch at his
command post in Luxembourg with the
commander of the 6th Armored Division,
General Grow. “How long will it take-
you,” Middleton asked Grow, “to get a
task force on the road to drive across
the front of the 6th Cavalry Group and
contact XI I Corps?” 21 By 1630 a strong
force composed of a company each of
light and medium tanks, a cavalry troop,
an infantry company, a platoon of tank
destroyers, and two squads of engineers
was on the way. The commander was
Lt. Col. Harold C. Davall.
Expanding the XII Corps Bridgehead
The troops that Davall’s task force set
out to contact had found the opposition
stiffer than that facing the VI I I Corps
but nevertheless had made steady prog-
ress. With less ground to cover to reach
the intercorps boundary, they would be
on hand at the boundary when Davall
arrived. These were men of the 80th
Division, who on 18 February only a few
hours after the VIII Corps jumped off
had begun their assignment to help clear
the Vianden bulge. At the same time they
were expanding the XI I Corps bridge-
head and preparing the way for a final
drive on Bitburg.
Early on 18 February, the 80th Di-
vision commander, General McBride,
sent two regiments north from the vicin-
21 Interview, Meyer with Grow, 6 Aug 53.
ity of Wallendorf toward Mettendorf
and Hill 408, the latter the most com-
manding ground in the second and third
tier of hills beyond the German frontier.
While protecting the left flank of the 5th
Division in the corps main effort, the
thrust also would uncover the West Wall
pillboxes along the Our River. 22
The 80th Division’s two regiments
took three days to reach Hill 408, but
before daylight on 21 February a bat-
talion of the 3 18th Infantry slipped
through the darkness to occupy the
height after firing only a few shots. I n
the meantime, a battalion of the 317th
Infantry took the enemy by surprise at
Enzen, on the little Enz River southeast
of Hill 408, seized a bridge intact, and
gained a leg on the next fold of high
ground lying between the Enz and the
Pruem.
The 319th Infantry meanwhile ma-
neuvered against the pillboxes along the
Our. Advancing along the west bank of
the Gay Creek, the first stream line be-
hind the river and the pillboxes, one
battalion during the night of 18 Feb-
ruary occupied high ground near Nie-
dersgegen, nestled at the bottom of the
creek valley, and soon after daylight took
the village itself. The next day, 20 Feb-
ruary, the same battalion turned west to
the Our, cutting off the Germans in a
two and a half mile stretch of the West
Wall.
The job of mopping up the pillboxes
fell to the 53d Armored Infantry Bat-
talion, attached from the 4th Armored
Division. The weather helped. With the
ground free of snow and more than a
hint of spring in the air, it was no time
22 80th Div FO 31, 14 Feb 45.
BI TBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE
113
to die. By nightfall of the 21st, when the
mop-up was complete, 337 Germans had
emerged from the West Wall bunkers,
hands high in surrender.
With the West Wall eliminated and
Hill 408 taken, time for exploitation ap-
peared at hand. As a first step in commit-
ment of the 4th Armored Division, the
corps commander, General Eddy, at-
tached Combat Command B to the 80th
Division. On 23 February the armor
drove northeast to take Sinspelt and its
bridge over the Enz River on a main
highway nine miles due west of Bitburg.
It was no easy assignment, for in a last-
ditch effort to prevent breakout, the
Germans rushed the remnants of the 2d
Panzer Division down from Pruem. 23
Nevertheless, as night fell Sinspelt and a
serviceable bridge over the Enz were
secure.
Also taken was the settlement of
Obergeckler, along the corps boundary
just over a mile west and slightly north
of Sinspelt. There a battalion of the
319th Infantry kept pace with the armor
and as night came was in position to wel-
come Colonel Davall's task force from
the 6th Armored Division, approaching
from the north.
Task Force Davall had begun to move
at 1630 from the village of J ucken, on a
secondary road six miles northwest of
Obergeckler. Brushing aside a show of
resistance at a crossroads not quite two
miles from the starting point, the task
force continued southward through the
night, gathering in surprised Germans
along the way. At 0740 the next morning,
24 February, Task Force Davall made
23 MS # B–123 (Gersdorff).
contact with contingents of the 80th Di-
vision just north of Obergeckler.
Before the day was out, the 90th Di-
vision too had swept to the corps bound-
ary. At a cost of some 600 casualties, of
which approximately 125 were killed,
three divisions and a cavalry group had
pierced the West Wall in the rough ter-
rain of the Eifel and established a solid
front along the Pruem River. I n the
process, they took more than 3,000
prisoners. 24
To Bitburg and the Kyll
The Vianden bulge cleared, the XII
Corps on 24 February was free to turn
full attention to seizing Bitburg. Having
assumed command of the corps tempo-
rarily when on 22 February General
Eddy left for a brief rest, the 4th
Armored Division commander, General
Gaffey, ordered CCB released from con-
trol of the 80th Division and directed the
entire armored division to strike north-
eastward. The armor was to j ump the
Pruem and Nims Rivers, cut major roads
leading north out of Bitburg, and build
up along the Kyll River two miles be-
yond the town. The 5th Infantry Di-
vision was to take the town and reach the
Kyll to the east and southeast.
I n the days since 18 February, while
the 80th Division had been expanding
the XI I Corps bridgehead to north and
northeast, the 5th Division had cleared
the west bank of the Pruem to a point
only six miles southwest of Bitburg. At
the same time, the division had re-
grouped and turned over much of its
Pruem River line in the south to the
24 Div and cavalry group AAR’s, Feb 45.
114 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
76th Division. 25 Once the 5th had crossed
the Pruem, contingents of the 76th also
were to cross and drive southeast to pro-
tect the 5th’s right flank.
From the first it was apparent that
crossing the Pruem River would be con-
siderably easier than crossing the Sauer.
There was nothing to equal the clifflike
terrain along the Sauer, and the worst of
the flood waters resulting from the early
thaw had passed. Yet hardly anyone
could have anticipated how “unquestion-
ably easy” the crossing would be. 26 Start-
ing at 2300 the night of the 24th, a
battalion of the 2d Infantry crossed the
river within an hour and took high
ground just north of the village of
Wettlingen. An hour later a battalion of
the 10th Infantry crossed a few miles to
the south on the heels of a patrol that
found a serviceable vehicular ford. Only
scattered mortar and small arms fire op-
posed either crossing.
As the infantrymen fanned out to the
north and northeast, the story was much
the same everywhere. “Germans came
forward bearing white flags and sickly
smiles.” 27 By nightfall of 26 February,
one battalion of the 2d Infantry stood on
the Nims River less than a mile from the
western edge of Bitburg. Another bat-
25 On 27 February, as Pfc. Herman C. Wallace
of the 76th Division’s 301st Engineer Combat Bat-
talion was helping clear mines from a road near
the river, he stepped on an S-mine, an antiperson-
nel device that when activated normally leaps
upward to explode in the air. Hearing the sound
indicating that his step had activated the mine,
Private Wallace spared those around him by hold-
ing his foot on the mine and placing his other
firmly beside it. This confined the explosion to the
ground but inevitably killed him in the process.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthu-
mously.
26 The Fifth Infantry Division in the ETO,
“Across the Sauer Into the Siegfried Line.”
27 I bi d.
talion of the 2d and two of the 10th
Infantry were across the stream farther
south and had cut the Echternach-
Bitburg highway. The 2d Battalion, 2d
Infantry, took a bridge over the Nims
intact, and one of the 10th Infantry’s
battalions crossed over the ruins of a
demolished bridge. A regiment of the
76th Division meanwhile crossed the
Pruem through the 10th Infantry’s
bridgehead and also jumped the Nims.
The fate of Bitburg was sealed even
had there been no 4th Armored Division
racing northeastward along the left flank
of the infantry. As early as the evening
of 25 February, a day before the infantry
crossed the Nims, a task force of the 4th
Armored had a bridgehead over the sec-
ond river a mile and a half northwest of
Bitburg. With planes of the XIX Tac-
tical Air Command almost constantly
overhead, the bulk of two combat com-
mands got across the Nims on 26 Feb-
ruary and spread out to northeast and
east. Part of the 80th Division’s infantry
followed in the wake of the armor to
bring in the prisoners, while one regi-
ment moved north and established con-
tact with the VIII Corps at Mauel.
On the German side, the new Seventh
Army commander, General Felber, ap-
pealed to his superiors time after time
for help, but to little avail. In the end,
Army Group B managed to detach a de-
pleted infantry division, the 246th, from
the Fifth Panzer Army to the north, but
the division began to move toward Bit-
burg only on 27 February. That was far
too late. 28
As early as 26 February fighter-bomber
pilots reported the Germans evacuating
28 MS # B–831, Seventh Army, 20 February-26
March 1945 (Felber).
BI TBURG AND THE VIANDEN BULGE 115
Bitburg. Well they might, for by night-
fall of the 26th a task force of the 4th
Armored Division had reached the west
bank of the Kyll two miles northeast of
the town, and by nightfall of the 27th a
battalion of the 5th Division’s 11th In-
fantry occupied a village a mile southeast
of the town while another battalion
poised in the southern fringe of Bitburg
itself. Before midday on 28 February the
11th Infantry delivered the coup de
grâce to a town already severely battered
by American planes and artillery.
Beginning on 4 February with the
start of the VIII Corps offensive aimed
at Pruem, two corps of the Third Army
in just over three weeks had penetrated
the West Wall in some of the most for-
bidding terrain to be found along the
Western Front. At its widest point, the
penetration measured more than twenty-
five miles. The VIII Corps at the end of
February stood on the Pruem while the
XI I Corps bulged eastward to the Kyll.
Although the Rhine still lay some fifty
miles away and terrain still might con-
stitute a major obstacle, the enemy’s
prepared defenses lay behind, and only
a miracle could enable the Germans to
man another solid front in the Eifel.
The Third Army commander, General
Patton, meanwhile had been turning his
attention to one more detail that had to
be attended to before he could make a
final thrust to the Rhine. Striding into
the 76th Division’s command post early
on 26 February, Patton placed a fist on
the operations map at the ancient Roman
city of Trier on the Moselle. 29
Almost unnoticed in the bigger pic-
ture of the Western Front, an infantry
division and an armored division of the
Third Army’s XX Corps had been nib-
bling away at the German position south
of Trier that had become known as the
Saar-Moselle triangle. The XX Corps
from the south and the 76th Division
from the north, Patton directed, were to
envelop Trier.
29 1st Lt. J oseph J . Hutnik and Tech. 4 Leonard
Kobrick, eds., We Ripened Fast-The Unofficial
History of the Seventy-Sixth Infantry Division
(Germany, n.d.), p. 102.
CHAPTER VII
The Saar-Moselle Triangle
During September 1944, the great
pursuit across France and Belgium had
ended in the north along the German
frontier and the West Wall, in the south
generally along the line of the Moselle
River. I n the bitter fighting that followed
through the autumn and early winter,
the Thi rd Army in the south had
breached the Moselle line around Metz,
pushed northeast across the German
border, and broken the outer crust of
the West Wall along the Saar River at
Saarlautern, thirty-two miles south of
Trier. Although a combination of Third
and Seventh Army attacks compromised
the Moselle line along most of its length,
the Germans had continued to hold the
east bank in a triangle formed by con-
fluence of the Saar and the Moselle south-
west of Trier. The Thi rd Army had yet
to clear the triangle when the call had
come in December to move into the Ar-
dennes.
To American troops the uncleared sec-
tor was the “Saar-Moselle triangle.”
From an apex at the meeting of the Saar
and the Moselle in the north to a base
along an east-west line roughly cotermi-
nous with the southern border of Luxem-
bourg, the triangle measured some
sixteen and a half miles. The base ex-
tended not quite thirteen miles. Al-
though the West Wall in this sector lay
behind the Saar, the Germans in 1939
and 1940 had constructed a supple-
mentary fortified line across the base of
the triangle from Nennig in the west to
Orscholz, at a great northwestward loop
of the Saar. The Germans called the posi-
tion the Orscholz Switch; the Americans
knew it as the Siegfried Switch. Assum-
ing the neutrality of Luxembourg, the
switch position was designed to protect
Trier and the Moselle corridor and to
prevent outflanking of the strongest por-
tion of the West Wall, that lying to the
southeast across the face of the Saar in-
dustrial area.
The Orscholz Switch was similar to the
West Wall itself, a defensive position two
miles deep, fronted by dragon’s teeth or
antitank ditches and composed of pill-
boxes and concrete bunkers reinforced
by field fortifications. I t sat astride high
ground forming a watershed for streams
flowing generally northeast to the Saar
and west and southwest to the Moselle.
The terrain is rolling and sharply com-
partmented, in many places covered with
dense woods. The major roads converge
on the town of Saarburg, halfway up the
east side of the triangle on the west bank
of the Saar River.
I n November and December, while
striking toward the Saar at Saarlautern,
General Walker’s XX Corps on the left
wing of the Third Army had been able
to turn only a scant force against the
Orscholz Switch and the triangle. I n
late November an armored combat com-
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE 117
mand and an infantry regiment had engi-
neered a minor penetration of the left
portion of the switch at the villages of
Tettingen and Butzdorf; but the XX
Corps had had to relinquish the ground
in December in the general belt-tighten-
ing process to free units for the Ar-
dennes. 1 When in early J anuary a rela-
tively inexperienced infantry division,
the 94th under Maj. Gen. Harry J . Ma-
lony, arrived in this sector, the forward
positions were south of the Orscholz
line.
As the 94th Division moved into posi-
tion on 7 J anuary, the levies imposed by
the Ardennes fighting had so severely
reduced General Walker’s XX Corps that
all sectors were thinly manned. Beyond
the corps left boundary at the Moselle, a
cavalry group of the neighboring XI I
Corps held the west bank of the Moselle.
The 94th Division faced the entire 13-
mile stretch of the Orscholz Switch, from
Moselle to Saar. The 3d Cavalry Group
defended the XX Corps center, approxi-
mately nine miles along the Saar River
to the confluence of the Saar and the
Nied. The 95th Infantry Division held
the remainder of the corps front, roughly
equal to the distance covered by the
cavalry but involving an added responsi-
bility of defending a bridgehead over the
Saar at Saarlautern. (The 95th subse-
quently was replaced by the 26th Di-
vision.)
Before arriving in the Saar-Moselle
triangle, the 94th Division had fought
to contain Germans corralled in the
Breton ports of Lorient and St. Nazaire.
I n part to provide the division offensive
combat experience, in part to contain the
Germans in the Orscholz Switch and
1 Cole, The Lorraine Campaign, chs. XI, XIII.
possibly to draw reserves from other sec-
tors, and in part to gain a foothold in he
line for later exploitation, the corps
commander, General Walker, told Gen-
eral Malony on 12 J anuary to begin a
series of stabs into the line in strengths
not to exceed one reinforced battalion. 2
Probing the Orscholz Switch
As had other units in November, the
94th Division made its first thrusts into
the left portion of the Orscholz Switch in
an attack designed to hit a sensitive point
that might evoke German counterattack,
which the Americans might crush with
heavy German losses. At dawn on 14
J anuary, the 1st Battalion, 376th Infan-
try, commanded by Lt. Col. Russell M.
Miner, plowed through a foot of snow
and in just over an hour overran sur-
prised German outposts to take Tettin-
gen, the first village behind the dragon’s
teeth on the western slopes of a high
hogback ridgeline marked by the trace
of a major highway leading northeast to
Saarburg. ( Map V ) So successful was
the assault that the regimental com-
mander ordered Colonel Miner to con-
tinue into the adjacent village of Butz-
dorf. Although fire from an alerted
enemy in nearby pillboxes made this task
more difficult, Butzdorf too was in hand
before noon. The next day, when the
3d Battalion of the 376th Infantry at-
2 In addition to official records of the 94th Di-
vision and a series of combat interviews, see an
excellent unit history, Laurence G. Byrnes, ed.,
History of the 94th Infantry Division in World
War II (Washington: Infantry J ournal Press, 1948).
See also XX Corps Association, The XX Corps:
Its History and Service in World War II (J apan,
n.d.) (Hereafter cited as XX Corps History), and
detailed comments by General Malony on the draft
manuscript for this volume.
118 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
tacked toward Nennig and two other
villages on the Moselle floodplain north-
west of Tettingen and Butzdorf, the go-
ing was less easy, but as night came on 15
J anuary these three villages forming the
western anchor of the Orscholz Switch
also were in hand.
The rapidity with which the two
thrusts had broken into the switch posi-
tion was attributable in large measure
to the fact that the enemy’s 416th Infan-
try Division, responsible for the sector
since November, was gravely overex-
tended. Only two regiments held the
entire Orscholz Switch, while the third
defended in the West Wall beyond the
Saar. Only the division replacement
battalion was available as a reserve. 3
Before dawn on 15 J anuary, even as
the 3d Battalion, 376th Infantry, moved
toward Nennig and the other villages on
the Moselle floodplain, the 416th Divi-
sion’s replacement battalion counter-
attacked at Butzdorf and Tettingen. Al-
though close-in fighting raged for a time
in both villages, the Germans in the end
had to fall back. Of some 400 who made
the counterattack, scarcely more than a
hundred escaped; some died from minor
wounds after prolonged exposure in the
subfreezing cold. 4
As General Malony had hoped, the
attacks had prompted German counter-
attack with attendant German losses.
What he had not counted on was a coin-
cidence that provided the Germans in
8 MS # B-573, Battles of the 416th Infantry
Division Between the Moselle and the Saar From
5 October 1944 to 17 February 1945 (Oberleutnant
Karl Redmer, after consultation with various of-
ficers of the 416th Div, LXXXII Corps, and ad-
jacent units): MS # B-090, Rhineland Campaign
(Generalleutnant Kurt Pflieger, CG 416th Diu).
Ibid., Byrnes, History of the 94th Infantry Di-
vision in World War II, pp. 95–98.
the Orscholz Switch a powerful force for
another counterattack. While the 94th
Division was preparing its two thrusts,
the enemy’s 11th Panzer Division had
‘been en route to the very sector General
Malony had chosen for his first attacks.
Having been scheduled for the Arden-
nes counteroffensive but not committed,
the 11th Panzer Division early in J anuary
was shifted south across the army group
boundary, which bisected the northern
corner of the Saar-Moselle triangle. With
the shift the panzer division became a
reserve for Army Group G.
The commander of Army Group G,
General Blaskowitz, planned a variety of
exercises in which he would use the
panzer division in concert with other
units to complement a faltering Opera-
tion NORDWI ND in Alsace, but for
lack of additional units, none of the
plans had materialized. I n the end,
Blaskowitz assigned the panzer division
to the LXXXII Corps (General der
Infanterie Walther Hahm) , one of three
corps operating directly under the army
group without an intervening army
headquarters. The LXXXII Corps was
responsible for a long stretch of the Saar
and for the Orscholz Switch. I n order to
relieve pressure on the embattled Sev-
enth Army in the Ardennes, the 11th
Panzer Division was to make a strong
armored raid out of the Orscholz Switch,
three and a half miles to the southwest to
heights on the east bank of the Moselle
overlooking the meeting point of the
German and Luxembourg frontiers.
Target date for the raid was mid-J anu-
ary. The axis of attack was to run directly
through Butzdorf and Tettingen. 5
5 MSS #B-417, The 11th Panzer Division in the
Rhineland, 20 December 1944–10 February 1945
(Generalleutnant Wend von Wietersheim, CG 11th
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE
119
CREW OF A 3-INCH GUN on the watch for German tanks in the Saar-Moselle
triangle.
For want of fuel and because capacity
of bridges over the Saar was limited,
some 50 Mark V (Panther) tanks of the
11th Panzer Division had to remain east
of the Saar. The raid would be entrusted
to 30 Mark IV (medium) tanks, 20 to
Panzer Division); # B–066, Engagements Fought
by LXXXII Army Corps During the Period 2
December 1944 to 27 March 1945 (Oberst Ludwig
Graf von Ingelheim, CofS LXXXII Corps); #
B–573 (Redmer). See also Magna Bauer, Army
Group G, J anuary 1945, MS prepared in OCMH
to complement this volume.
30 assault guns, and 2 relatively full-
strength panzer grenadier regiments. 6
American pilots reported German
armor crossing the Saar during the day of
16 J anuary, so that when night came the
94th Division was fully alert. At Butz-
dorf, Tettingen, Nennig, and the other
Unless otherwise noted, sources for 11th Panzer
Division actions are as cited in the footnote above.
Note that some of the German officers, having
worked without benefit of contemporary records,
sometimes erred on dates. Byrnes i n his 94th Di-
vision history provides a detailed lower-level
German account, apparently from prisoner inter-
rogations.
120 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
villages, the men worked through 17
J anuary to lay antitank mines and bring
up tank destroyers and additional ba-
zookas. (The 94th Division as yet had no
attached tank battalion.) Through the
night the sound of tracked vehicles
emanated from woods and villages to the
north and northeast. Then at 0300 on 18
J anuary a patrol returned with two
prisoners who confirmed all suspicions:
the prisoners were from 11th Panzer
Division.
At dawn on the 18th the storm broke.
For twenty minutes German mortars
and artillery worked over Butzdorf and
Tettingen, then from the northeast from
the nearby village of Sinz emerged a
long column of tanks, assault guns, half-
tracks bulging with greatcoated Ger-
mans, and infantry on foot. Despite
heavy concentrations of defensive artil-
lery fire, the Germans kept coming. As
half the force struck Butzdorf, the other
half swung in a wide arc to hit Tettin-
gen.
For more than an hour confusion
reigned in both villages as German tanks
and assault guns shot up the landscape
and infantrymen of both sides fought at
close quarters among the damaged build-
ings. Mines disabled some of the German
vehicles, and a 57-mm. antitank gun
caught one tank broadside, but in the
main it was a job for intrepid infantry-
men stalking with bazookas.
Shortly after 0900 the Germans fell
back, but just before noon ten tanks
again emerged from Sinz, took up hull
defilade positions and persistently
pounded the two villages. At 1430 three
battalions of German infantry launched a
fresh assault, this time directed primarily
at Butzdorf. Again the Germans oc-
cupied many of the houses. Again close-
in fighting raged.
Throughout the afternoon the lone
American company in Butzdorf fought
back, but as night approached the sur-
vivors controlled only a few buildings.
So fire-swept was the open ground be-
tween Tettingen and Butzdorf that the
Americans could bring neither reinforce-
ments nor supplies forward. As darkness
fell General Malony authorized the sur-
vivors in Butzdorf to fall back.
The company commander in Butz-
dorf, 1st Lt. David F. Stafford, already
had arrived independently at the con-
clusion that withdrawal was the only
course left to him short of surrender or
annihilation. Tearing doors off their
hinges to serve as litters for the seriously
wounded, what was left of the company
slowly pulled back through Stygian dark-
ness and a heavy snowfall while guns of
the 284th and 919th Field Artillery
Battalions fired covering concentrations.
When the survivors reached Tettin-
gen, they found a fresh battalion of the
376th Infantry in position to defend that
village. Although no one could have
known it at the time, the high-water
mark of the raid through the Orscholz
Switch had come and gone. The Ger-
mans had taken Butzdorf, and three days
later, during the night of 21 J anuary,
they succeeded in fighting their way into
half the village of Nennig on the Moselle
floodplain and into a castle northeast of
Nennig, but that was the end. Handi-
capped by absence of heavy tanks,
severely restricted by the snow-covered
terrain (one thrust on Nennig bogged
down when the tanks foundered in an
antitank ditch concealed by snowdrifts) ,
and punished by artillery fire directed
from an observation post on heights west
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE
121
REMOVING GERMAN DEAD AFTER FIGHTING I N NENNIG
of the Moselle, the 11th Panzer Division
could only slow the tempo of the 94th
Division's thrusts. 7
Hardly had the echoes of the fighting
with the panzer division died down when
General Malony aimed another limited
objective attack into the German line.
This time he chose to strike at the
eastern anchor of the Orscholz Switch, at
Orscholz itself, where a regiment of the
overextended 416th Infantry Division
still was responsible for the defense. A
7 For a description of German difficulties, see
MSS # B-417 (Wietersheim) and # B-066 (In-
gelheim).
penetration at Orscholz, combined with
that at Tettingen, might be exploited
later into a double envelopment of the
center of the switch position.
Orscholz perched atop a ridge with
snow-covered open fields gently sloping
to the south. The only logical covered
approach to the village from the posi-
tions held by the 94th Division was
through the Saarburg Forest, southwest
and west of the village. Through this
forest the 301st Infantry commander,
Col. Roy N. Hagerty, planned to send
his 1st Battalion in a surprise attack just
before dawn on 20 J anuary. The battal-
122 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
ion was to reach the east-west Oberleu-
ken-Orscholz highway running through
the woods, then to turn eastward and
strike at Orscholz.
As the men of the 1st Battalion moved
into position, the night was bitterly cold
and a swirling snowstorm made night-
time control even more difficult than
usual. Daylight had come before the two
assault companies were ready to cross the
line of departure, a stretch of dragon’s
teeth in a clearing a few hundred yards
south of the Oberleuken-Orscholz high-
way. Company B on the left moved si-
lently forward, not a shot barring the
way. Company A on the right was less
fortunate. As the men passed among the
projections of the concrete antitank
obstacle a drumbeat of explosions filled
the air. Mines.
Company B meanwhile continued
silently through the forest, reached the
highway, and turned east toward Or-
scholz. The advance guard overran
several German machine gun positions,
but in general the move was unopposed.
Reaching the edge of the woods over-
looking Orscholz, the company com-
mander, Capt. Herman C. Straub, halted
his men to await the rest of the battalion.
At the line of departure, the battalion
commander, Lt. Col. George F. Miller,
had tried to shift Company A to the left
to follow in the footsteps of Company B,
but too late. The explosions in the mine-
field had alerted the Germans in pill-
boxes and communications trenches
overlooking the clearing. Company A
came under a withering crossfire from
automatic weapons. As the men fell to
the ground for protection, mortars and
artillery ploughed the clearing with
deadly bursts. Among those killed was
Colonel Miller.
Although the regimental commander,
Colonel Hagerty, sent a company from
another battalion to reinforce the attack,
every effort to get across the clearing
merely increased the casualty toll. One
company lost sixty men to antipersonnel
mines alone. Tank destroyers tried to
help, but the ground in the clearing was
marshy and not frozen solidly enough to
support the self-propelled guns. Patrols
sent out after nightfall in search of a
route past the German defenses found no
solution.
When daylight came again, the regi-
mental executive officer, Lt. Col. Donald
C. Hardin, sent to replace Colonel Miller
as battalion commander, told Colonel
Hagerty it would take an entire regiment
to push the attack successfully. Although
the corps commander, General Walker,
earlier had modified the 1-battalion
restriction imposed on the 94th Divi-
sion’s attacks and had granted approval
for using as much as a regiment to ex-
ploit a penetration,* General Malony saw
no reason to reinforce what was in effect
a failure at Orscholz. He gave his permis-
sion to abandon the effort.
Captain Straub and Company B in the
meantime had not long remained un-
detected at the woods line overlooking
Orscholz. Learning by radio of the mis-
fortune that had befallen the rest of the
battalion, Captain Straub shifted his
men south of the Oberleuken-Orscholz
highway to a position adaptable to all-
round defense. With the aid of protective
fires from the 301st field artillery, the
company held, but not without serious
losses aggravated by the bitter cold.
With the attack abandoned, word went
out to Captain Straub to fight his way
8 94th Div G–3 J nl, 18 J an 45,
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE 123
out. Straub answered that he “could not
comply.” Many of the men were seriously
wounded; at least one already had
frozen to death; and ammunition was
almost gone. Although Colonel Hagerty
himself talked with Straub by radio,
outlining a plan to cover the company’s
withdrawal with smoke, the captain
again said withdrawal was impossible.
Every attempt to move, he said, brought
heavy enemy fire that pinned the men
to their positions.
Company B and attachments, a force
of approximately 230 men, raised a white
flag. 9
Expanding the Penetration
For another day after the misfortune
at Orscholz, those units of the 94th
Division that had penetrated the western
end of the switch position at Tettingen
and Nennig would be fully occupied
fending off the 11th Panzer Division.
Only on 23 J anuary would the division
be free to recoup the minor loss of
ground incurred and return again to
consolidating and expanding the pene-
tration.
Renewed limited objective attacks
began early on 23 J anuary when a bat-
talion of the 376th Infantry moved to
retake the northern half of Nennig, lost
to the Germans the preceding night. I t
took all day to root a stubborn enemy
from the damaged houses and at the
same time eliminate five Mark IV tanks.
Two men, T. Sgt. Nathaniel Isaacman,
a platoon sergeant, and Pvt. J ohn F.
Pietrzah, alone accounted for two of the
9 301st Inf and 94th Div AAR’s, J an 45; 94th Div
G–3 J nl, 21–22 J an 45; Byrnes, History of the 94th
Infantry Division, p. 138; Combat interview with
Hagerty. Direct quotation is from Hagerty.
tanks and set up a third for the kill.
Spotting three tanks advancing up a
narrow street, the men climbed to the
top of a house, then crept from one roof-
top to another to gain a position above
the tanks. The first rocket from Pietrzah’s
bazooka missed, but a second sent the
lead tank up in flames. Another rocket
put a quick end to the tank in the rear.
The third tank, trapped between the
other two, fell ready prey to a rifle gren-
ade fired by a man on the ground, Pvt.
Albert J . Beardsley. 10
I n the attack at Nennig, the battalion
of the 376th Infantry had the assistance
of a company of armored infantrymen.
This presaged introduction of a new
force in the Orscholz Switch, a combat
command of the 8th Armored Division.
The armored division, yet to see combat,
had rushed across France earlier in the
month in reaction to Operation NORD-
WI ND. Not used in that fight, the divi-
sion had been attached temporarily to
the Third Army for combat training.
The army commander, General Patton,
saw in the attachment an opportunity to
give the division battle experience while
at the same time remedying the 94th
Division’s lack of attached tanks. He gave
General Malony the 8th Armored’s Com-
bat Command A (Brig. Gen. Charles F.
Colson) , but stipulated that the armor
10 On the same day, T. Sgt. Nicholas Oresko led
his platoon of the 302d Infantry in an attack to
clear German-held pillboxes near Tettingen. Ser-
geant Oresko singlehandedly knocked out a ma-
chine gun that was pinning down his men with
fire from a bunker. Wounded in the hip, he re-
fused evacuation and again advanced alone to
knock out another machine gun firing from a field
fortification. Still Oresko refused evacuation until
his platoon’s mission had been accomplished. He
subsequently received the Medal of Honor.
124 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
was to be used for only forty-eight
hours. 11
Prodded by General Walker and his
staff officers at XX Corps headquarters, 12
Malony was determined to get as much
help as possible from the combat com-
mand before the time limit expired. He
intended to use the armor to help turn
the limited penetration of the Orscholz
Switch into a genuine breach that might
be exploited quickly into breakout.
Malony’s plan revolved around cap-
ture of Sinz, northeast of Butzdorf and
Tettingen, and wooded high ground
northwest of Sinz. From there, in a sub-
sequent stage, he planned to take Mun-
zingen, a mile and a half to the east, a
village crowning the hogback ridge lead-
ing deep into the Saar-Moselle triangle.
Holding the high ground northwest of
Sinz and at Munzingen, the 94th Divi-
sion would be all the way through the
Orscholz Switch, in a favorable position
for exploitation.
The role of the armor in the Sinz
attack was to advance northeast from the
vicinity of Nennig, clear pillboxes along
a road leading into Nennig from the
west, then help infantry of the 94th
Division take the village. Before com-
mitting the armor, General Malony in-
tended his infantry to occupy high
ground northeast of Nennig, including
the castle occupied earlier by units of
the 11th Panzer Division. That would set
up more favorable conditions for using
the armor.
As events developed, the battalion of
11 In addition to official 8th Armored Div records,
see also 94th Div G–3 J nl for the period; Capt.
Charles R. Leach, In Tornado’s Wake—A History
of the 8th Armored Division (8th Armored Divi-
sion Association, 1956); Gay Diary, entry of 17
J an 45.
12 94th Div G–3 J nl, 23–26 J an 45.
the 376th Infantry assigned to take the
castle was, by the early hours of 25
J anuary, so worn out from the fight at
Nennig that the commander urged that
some other unit be given the task. The
CCA commander, General Colson, vol-
unteered his unit. At dawn on 25 J anu-
ary, half the combat command, organized
as a task force under Lt. Col. Arthur D.
Poinier, commander of the 7th Armored
Infantry Battalion, jumped off, only to
discover quickly that the 11th Panzer
Division still had a lot of fight left. So
perturbed at the slow pace of the day’s
advance was the corps commander, Gen-
eral Walker, that he removed all restric-
tions on the size of the forces the 94th
Division might commit. “Go ahead,” he
said, “and use them all.” 13 At the same
time, he tacitly agreed to extending the
time limit on use of the combat com-
mand an extra day—through 27 J anuary.
As finally decided, two regiments and
the combat command were to make the
attack. On the left, the 302d Infantry
(Col. Earle A. J ohnson) was to pave the
way for the armor; on the right, the
376th Infantry (Col. Harold H. Mc-
Clune) was to move on Sinz. Avoiding
open ground south of Sinz, the regiment
was to attack through woods southwest
and west of the village and link with the
armor along the highway in the woods
for the assault on the village itself. A
battalion of the 302d, operating directly
under division control, meanwhile was
to recapture Butzdorf, lost on the first
day of German counterattacks.
The most encouraging success on 26
J anuary came on the right. There an
antipersonnel minefield hidden by the
deep snow stymied one battalion, but
13 94th Div G–3 J nl, 25 J an 45.
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE 125
two companies of another battalion
slipped past and gained the woods over-
looking Sinz from the west. Although
three German tanks supported by infan-
try counterattacked, bazookas accounted
for two of the tanks and drove the other
away. Artillery fire took care of the Ger-
man infantry. The two companies dug
in for the night, protecting their left and
rear with the 376th Infantry’s reserve
battalion, which got safely past the mine-
field and into the woods by following
the route the two leading companies
had taken.
According to the plan, the armor was
to have linked with this force along the
highway bisecting the forest, but the
armor and the 302d Infantry on the left
ran into trouble. Intense machine gun
fire from the north stopped the infantry-
men, while the armor after getting into
the western edge of the woods came to
a halt before a deep antitank ditch.
The next day, 27 J anuary, as the corps
commander, General Walker, warned
that the armored combat command
would be withdrawn that night, General
Malony committed a battalion of his
reserve, the 301st Infantry, to help clear
a path for the tanks. Although armored
engineers during the night had bridged
the antitank ditch, the fresh infantry
battalion had to spend all morning tak-
ing out machine guns and an antitank
gun before the armor could cross. Soon
after midday CCA’s tanks at last started
forward and quickly linked with men of
the 376th Infantry overlooking Sinz.
Assault on the village itself was
delayed, first by a counterattack against
the left flank in the woods, then by ac-
curate German tank fire from hills and
woods north and east of Sinz. Darkness
was falling when a platoon of tanks and
two infantry companies at last gained a
toehold in the village against stalwart de-
fenders of the 11th Panzer Division. I n
the process, CCA’s 18th Tank Battalion
knocked out eight German tanks but lost
six of its own.
When General Malony asked to keep
the combat command to finish taking
the village the next day, General Walker
declined. The period of indoctrination
was over. The 94th Division was to take
a rest, then later to resume its limited
objective attacks. 14
Broadening the Effort
Almost coincident with the arrival- of
a new directive from General Walker
to resume the attack but to employ no
more than a regiment at a time, the
February thaw and the rains came. Be-
ginning on 2 February rain fell for eight
days, turning foxholes into frigid dirty
bathtubs and roads into oozing ribbons
of mud. Yet the attacks began, concen-
trating on objectives designed to obtain
eventual control of the hogback ridge
leading into the depths of the Saar-
Moselle triangle.
Malony first turned the 302d Infantry
against Kampholz Woods, southeast of
Tettingen on the western slopes of the
ridge. Resistance was stubborn, partic-
ularly from a nest of pillboxes on ap-
proaches to the woods from the west.
The last of the pillboxes held out until
8 February.
Meanwhile, Malony reverted to his
original plan of gaining a hold on the
hogback ridge at Munzingen by first
taking Sinz. Moving just before daylight
on 7 February, a battalion of the 301st
14 94th Div G–3 J nl, 27 J an 45.
126
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
GENERAL WALKER
Infantry quickly took the first houses and
went on to clear the rest of the village
during the day; but another battalion,
trying to clear Bannholz Woods, a domi-
nating copse north of the village, ran into
tanks and panzer grenadiers of the 11th
Panzer Division and had to fall back.
From the German viewpoint, a ready
explanation for the differing resistance
at Sinz and in the Bannholz Woods was
available. Persistent protestations by the
11th Panzer Division commander, Gen-
eral von Wietersheim, that his recondi-
tioned panzer force was being needlessly
bled to death on an inappropriate assign-
ment had begun to pay off two days be-
fore. On the 5th the first contingents of
the 256th Volks Grenadier Division had
arrived to begin relieving the panzer
division, although a small contingent still
was present on the 7th in Bannholz
Woods. 15
Units of the 94th Division made three
more tries to take Bannholz Woods dur-
ing the next few days, but without suc-
cess. Although the opposition continued
to come from the panzer division, bit by
bit intelligence information gathered
from other parts of the line revealed the
gradual withdrawal of the tanks and
introduction of the 256th Division. I n
light of the condition of the volks
grenadiers, badly mauled in Operation
NORDWI ND in Alsace, the shift could
only weaken the enemy’s hold on the
Orscholz Switch. The time clearly was
approaching for a full-scale attack to
reduce the switch position and open the
entire Saar-Moselle triangle to swift re-
duction. Conferring with Malony on 15
February, the corps commander, General
Walker, gave the word to lift all restric-
tions and launch a major assault. 16
General Malony developed his plan as
a logical extension of the earlier probing
attacks, this time aimed at a complete
rupture of the Orscholz Switch and early
capture of the hogback ridge. Colonel
Hagerty’s 301st Infantry was to make the
main effort from Sinz to reach the crest
of the ridge and the highway leading
northeast from Munzingen. Colonel Mc-
Clune’s 376th Infantry was to protect the
301st’s left flank, while Colonel J ohn-
son’s 302d Infantry on the division’s
right was to strike almost due east from
the Kampholz Woods to the crest of the
hogback ridge and then roll up the for-
ward line of pillboxes farther east. An
15 MSS # B–417 (Wietersheim) and # B–066
(Ingelheim).
16 Byrnes, History of the 94th Infantry Division,
p. 239.
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE 127
elaborate program of corps and division
artillery fire was designed to isolate the
battlefield but to guard surprise by be-
ginning only as the infantry moved to the
attack. 17
To exploit success, General Walker
had no armored force immediately avail-
able. The 8th Armored Division early in
February had passed to another com-
mand. Even though the 10th Armored
Division (Maj. Gen. William H. H.
Morris, J r.) had been attached to the
XX Corps on 11 February, General
Eisenhower had specified that the divi-
sion be employed only with his approval,
a reflection of post-Ardennes insistence
on a sturdy reserve. Walker asked Eisen-
hower, through General Patton, for per-
mission to use the 10th Armored, but
received only a promise that the armor
would be released once the infantry
achieved a clear breakthrough. 18 Walker
took the reply as sufficient authority to
direct General Morris to reconnoiter
zones of advance and prepare for early
commitment .
Rain was falling when before daylight
on 19 February men of the 301st Infantry
moved east from Sinz up the slopes of the
hogback ridge in the direction of Mun-
zingen. I n less than two hours the pattern
the fighting would assume became ap-
parent. An occasional group of Germans
would fight back tenaciously, particularly
when protected by pillboxes or bunk-
ers, but in the main the opposition bore
no comparison to that put up earlier by
the panzer division. By daylight the 1st
and 3d Battalions held the crest of the
ridge, just short of Munzingen.
Antipersonnel mines were the biggest
17 94th Div FO 11, 16 Feb 45.
18 Combat Interview with XX Corps G–3, 5 Mar
45; Gay Diary, entry of 18 Feb 45.
problem. Company B’s 1st Platoon, for
example, lost all but sixteen men in a
minefield before the platoon sergeant, T.
Sgt. Henry E. Crandall, managed to blast
a path through with primacord. The
Germans in a nearby pillbox kept
Crandall and his trapped men under
vicious machine gun fire until the sur-
vivors got past the mines, then surren-
dered docilely.
A battalion of the 376th Infantry had
a similar experience in Bannholz Woods,
north of Sinz, the scene of such bitter
fighting in the earlier limited objective
attacks. Before dawn, men of this bat-
talion pushed past unwary German de-
fenders to gain the far edge of the woods
with little difficulty, then later rounded
up the prisoners. Totally different from
the panzer grenadiers, these Germans
had no stomach for the fight.
By this time, the 94th Division’s lack
of tank support had been remedied with
attachment of the 778th Tank Battalion,
which participated in the 376th Infan-
try’s attack. Tanks also came to the
rescue of men of the 302d Infantry in
their drive from Kampholz Woods to
the crest of the hogback ridge along the
forward line of Orscholz Switch pill-
boxes. There the infantrymen were tak-
ing comparatively severe casualties from
pillboxes manned by troops of the 416th
Infantry Division until, with daylight,
the tanks arrived.
Only a few hours after dawn on 19
February, the fact was clear that the 94th
Division had penetrated the Orscholz
Switch, whereupon General Malony
urged General Walker to send the 10th
Armored Division through. Walker in
turn telephoned the Third Army com-
mander, General Patton, for permission.
Unable to reach General Bradley at 12th
128
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Army Group headquarters, Patton tele-
phoned directly to SHAEF, where the
operations officer, Maj. Gen. Harold R.
Bull, agreed but with the proviso that
the armored division be returned to the
SHAEF reserve as soon as the Saar-
Moselle triangle was clear. Since Patton
already was thinking of going beyond
the original objectives if all went
smoothly, the restriction rankled. He
had to accept it nevertheless and notified
Walker to turn the armor loose. 19
The delay in permission to use the
armor held up the exploitation until the
next day, 20 February, but once com-
mitted, the armor was not to be denied.
Moving along the west side of the tri-
angle close to the Moselle, the Reserve
Combat Command (Col. Wade C. Gat-
chell), with the 94th Division’s 376th
Infantry attached, was to advance almost
thirteen miles to the northern tip of the
triangle while CCA (Brig. Gen. Edwin
W. Piburn) drove north up the center of
the triangle. When CCR reached the tip,
CCA was to swing northeast, hoping to
take advantage of enemy confusion to
seize bridges across the Saar at Kanzem
and Wiltingen, and thereby point a dag-
ger toward
Except for the problem of herding
prisoners, CCR’s advance on the 20th
was almost a road march, even though
the attack was delayed until midday
while a battalion of the 376th Infantry
19 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 244; Byrnes,
History of t he 94th Infantry Division, p. 254; Gay
Diary, entry of 19 Feb 45. Intentions to go beyond
the triangle are clear from XX Corps FO 16, 19
Feb 45.
20 An excellent account of the 10th Armored Di-
vision’s action is to be found i n Maj. J . Cantey,
et al., The 10th U.S. Armored Division in the Saar-
Moselle Triangle, a research report prepared at
The Armored School, May, 1949.
cleared two villages along the line of
departure. Not long after midnight the
combat command coiled for the night
almost halfway up the triangle.
CCA encountered greater difficulties
at first. One column, attacking up the
highway astride the hogback ridge, ran
into mines and fire from assault guns in
the first village beyond Munzingen and
at each of two succeeding villages, but in
all cases the result was more a question of
delay than genuine opposition. At one
point the column overran a regimental
command post.
CCA’s left column, hampered by a
traffic jam and an unmapped American
minefield at the line of departure near
Sinz, got moving only after full daylight
had come; but by midafternoon it was
apparent the column would quickly
make up the lost time. Although antitank
minefields and craters blown in the roads
forced the tanks to move cross-country at
the beginning of the thrust, once high
ground three miles northeast of Sinz was
taken the column returned to the roads.
Bypassing opposition, one task force
streaked north and then northeast along
secondary roads and as darkness came
occupied high ground north of Tawern,
almost at the tip of the triangle.
The next day, 21 February, CCR re-
newed its advance and reached the ex-
treme tip of the triangle, while the rest
of CCA headed for Tawern, eliminating
last remnants of opposition. The 94th
Division meanwhile was clearing that
part of the triangle southeast of the
armored columns and taking the remain-
ing pillboxes of the Orscholz Switch from
the rear.
After two days of exploitation the Saar-
Moselle triangle was clear at a cost to the
Germans in dead and wounded of an
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRIANGLE
129
estimated 3,000 and as many more cap-
tured. Only in the 94th Division, where
the thick antipersonnel minefields en-
countered on 19 February raised the divi-
sion’s casualties to over a thousand
wounded, were U.S. losses severe.
Crossing the Saar
Despite the speed of the 10th Armored
Division’s advance, the bridges over the
Saar River at Kanzem and Wiltingen
were blown before the tanks got there.
Operating on the theory of using the
armor until SHAEF said stop, General
Walker in midafternoon of 21 February
ordered General Morris to jump the
river. During the night the armor was to
cross northeast of Saarburg while the
94th Division crossed southeast of the
town. The bridgeheads then were to be
joined, whereupon the 94th was to pro-
tect the armor’s south flank while Morris
drove on Trier. The crossings of the
Saar then could be linked with the long-
held bridgehead to the southeast at
Saarlautern. 21
Influencing General Walker’s desire
for a quick crossing before the enemy
could recover from the debacle in the
triangle was the nature of the terrain on
the far bank, plus the fortifications of the
West Wall. Almost everywhere the east
bank dominates the approaches from the
west, usually with great wooded, clifflike
slopes. West Wall pillboxes arranged in
the normal pattern of mutual support
covered all the slopes but were in great-
est depth, sometimes up to three miles,
at those points where the terrain afforded
any real possibility for an assault cross-
ing. The river itself was from 120 to
21 XX Corps FO 17, 21 Feb 45.
150 feet wide, still swollen from the early
February thaw.
Through the night convoys carrying
assault boats toiled toward the Saar, but
dawn came in the 10th Armored Divi-
sion’s sector with no sign of the boats.
Alerted to make the crossing opposite
the village of Ockfen, a mile and a half
northeast of Saarburg, men of the at-
tached 376th Infantry took cover in
houses and cellars.
Southeast of Saarburg, sixty 12-man
assault boats and five motorboats were
available for the assault battalions of the
301st and the 302d Infantry; the first
boat arrived an hour after the planned
assault time of 0400 (22 February) . Con-
cealed by the darkness and a dense fog,
men of both battalions then prepared to
cross, one battalion opposite the east
bank village of Serrig, the other at the
west bank village of Taben.
Carrying a squad of Company C, 302d
Infantry, under Staff Sgt. J ohn F. Smith,
the first boat pushed out into the river
at Taben at 0650. The fog still held, and
so difficult was the terrain that the Ger-
mans had positioned few defenders at
the site.
The road leading down the west bank
was steep and winding. Along the far
bank ran a in-foot retaining wall, backed
by precipitous wooded slopes leading to
Hoecker Hill, an eminence three-fourths
of a mile from the river. Finding a ladder
in place, Sergeant Smith and his men
quickly scaled the retaining wall and
captured the startled occupants of a pill-
box. Other boatloads of men crossed with
little enemy interference, pulled them-
selves up the clifflike sides of Hoecker
Hill, and sent patrols upstream and
down to broaden the base of the bridge-
head. Before the morning was well along,
130
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
all the 1st Battalion was across and head-
ing north toward Serrig to link with men
of the 301st Infantry, while another bat-
talion crossed to defend Hoecker Hill
and the south flank.
The crossing went less smoothly op-
posite Serrig. There the assault boats for
the 3d Battalion, 301st Infantry, were
even later arriving, and the noise of man-
handling them to the water's edge alerted
troops of a local defense battalion in the
east bank pillboxes. Although German
fire was blind in the dark and the fog, it
served to scatter the boats of the leading
company so that the men touched down
with little organization remaining. Since
few of the boats survived the swift cur-
rent on the return journey, through the
morning only one company, operating
in little isolated groups, was on the east
bank. One group under the company
commander, Capt. Charles W. Donovan,
nevertheless took a few buildings on the
northern edge of Serrig and held them
until the afternoon when other men of
the 3d Battalion crossed in a fresh batch
of assault boats equipped with outboard
motors. White phosphorus shells fired by
the 81st Chemical Battalion and smoke
pots emplaced at the crossing site helped
make up for loss of the fog cover. As
night fell on 22 February, Serrig was
secure, the bridgeheads of the 301st and
302d Infantry Regiments joined.
At Ockfen, northeast of Saarburg, the
10th Armored Division's assault boats
finally arrived at midday. Under pressure
from Patton, 22 General Morris ordered a
crossing in late afternoon; but by this
time the fog had dissipated and German
machine gun fire from West Wall pill-
boxes so splattered the flats leading to
22 Gay Diary, entry of 22 Feb 45.
the crossing site that the 81st Chemical
(Smoke Generator) Company could get
no smoke generators into position to
screen the site. Neither could the assault
companies of the attached 376th Infantry
get down to the river.
I n the brief time between daylight and
late afternoon of 22 February, the Ger-
mans had managed to supplement the
local defense battalions in this part of
the West Wall with those remnants of
the 256th Volks Grenadier Division that
had escaped across the Saar ahead of the
American armor. Although ill-prepared
to counter such a quick thrust against
the Saar line, the LXXXII Corps com-
mander, General Hahm, was helped
when his southern boundary was shifted
northward to coincide roughly with the
east end of the Orscholz Switch, thereby
freeing one regiment of the 416th Infan-
try Division that had not been involved
in the Orscholz fight. He also benefited
from the fact that one of the panzer
grenadier battalions of the 11th Panzer
Division had yet to leave the area. These
forces General- Hahm would-be able to
bring to bear as the bridgehead fight
continued. 23
At Ockfen General Morris had no
alternative but to postpone the 376th
Infantry's assault again until after night-
fall. Beginning an hour before midnight,
two battalions, each in column of com-
panies, at last began to cross.
I n the northernmost sector, that of the
3d Battalion, the darkness was all that
was required. The leading company
reached the east side of the river without
drawing a single round of enemy fire,
quickly cleared the pillboxes guarding
23 MS # B–066 (Ingelheim).
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE
131
the bank, and opened a way for the rest
of the battalion.
Not so at the 1st Battalion’s crossing
site a few hundred yards upstream. As
the boats of Company C touched down
on the far bank, the Germans in the pill-
boxes brought down their final protec-
tive fires. Fortunately, visibility was too
restricted by darkness and fog for the
defenders to spot the attackers, even at
distances of only a few feet. Discerning
the pattern of enemy fires from tracer
bullets, the men of Company C began to
advance by small groups in short rushes,
gradually forcing their way into the pill-
box belt and beginning, one by one, to
reduce the fortifications.
German artillery and mortars mean-
while pounded the river itself and the
west bank, sinking many of the assault
boats and three times wounding the
376th Infantry commander, Colonel Mc-
Clune. The rest of the 1st Battalion
nevertheless crossed to the east bank
before daylight, though for lack of assault
boats one company had to move down-
stream and use the 3d Battalion’s craft.
There, in wake of the 3d Battalion, the
2d Battalion already had crossed. I n mid-
afternoon the 2d Battalion moved be-
hind a heavy artillery preparation to
take Ockfen; and by nightfall, 23 Febru-
ary, units of the regiment outposted
wooded high ground on three sides of
the village.
To the XX Corps commander, Gener-
al Walker, it had occurred earlier in the
day that expansion of both his Saar
crossings might be speeded by early
blocking of the main east-west highway
into the sector, a road leading from the
enemy’s main lateral route behind the
Saar at the settlement of Zerf westward to
the river at Beurig, across from Saarburg.
Walker ordered a special force, the 5th
Ranger Battalion (Lt. Col. Richard P.
Sullivan), to cross into the 94th Divi-
sion’s Serrig-Taben bridgehead, then to
slip through the woods toward the north-
east for some three and a half miles and
establish a roadblock on the highway
west of Zerf.
Guiding on a compass bearing, the
Rangers began to move at midnight, 23
February. They reached their objective
just before dawn. Quickly establishing a
perimeter defense, they began to collect
unwitting Germans as they passed along
the road. 24
Anticipating a determined German re-
action against the Rangers’ roadblock,
Walker arranged a maneuver designed
both to relieve the Rangers and to cap
ture the village of Beurig so that tactical
bridges could be built across the river
from Saarburg to take advantage of the
roadnet around the town. As a first step,
he ordered General Malony to drive
north to Beurig. Since likely bridging
sites in the 10th Armored Division’s
zone still were under observed fire,
Walker told General Morris to take his
armor south and cross the Saar on a 94th
Division bridge that would be ready at
Taben in midafternoon on 24 February.
The tanks then were to follow units of
the 94th Division into Beurig. There
they were to pick up their armored in-
fantrymen, who were to cross into the
Ockfen bridgehead in assault boats late
on 24 February and push south to
Beurig. Tanks and armored infantry
together were to drive east along the
main highway to relieve the Rangers.
The maneuver failed to develop ex-
actly as planned. Although the tanks and
24 5th Ranger Bn AAR, Feb 45.
132 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
half-tracks of Combat Command B (Col.
William L. Roberts), leading the 10th
Armored’s advance, crossed the Taben
bridge early on 25 February, the 94th
Division’s northward drive had been
slowed by tenacious resistance from pill-
boxes and by heavy mortar fire. Held up
on the fringe of Beurig, the infantrymen
realized they would be unable to take
the village before the armor arrived.
They sent guides back down the road to
intercept the tanks and lead them along
a wooded trail that bypassed Beurig and
led to the Beurig-Zerf highway. The only
infantry available to assist the tanks were
three officers and twenty-four men of the
Ranger battalion who had become sepa-
rated from their unit and had joined
CCB’s column in Taben.
By midafternoon the lead tank platoon
of CCB had emerged from the woods
onto the main highway and was headed
east into the village of Irsch. Despite a
roadblock in the center of the village,
Irsch appeared deserted. Two of the
platoon’s five tanks had passed the road-
block when a Tiger tank, a ground-
mount 88-mm. gun, and two Panzer-
fausts, all concealed behind nearby build-
ings, opened fire. I n rapid succession they
knocked out the last three U.S. tanks.
Hurrying forward, the little group of
Rangers helped the tankers put the Ger-
mans to flight, but CCB delayed clearing
the village until after nightfall, when a
company of armored infantrymen, mov-
ing southeast from the Ockfen bridge-
head and also bypassing Beurig, arrived
to help. The infantrymen took 290
prisoners from the 416th Division. 25
The next day, 26 February, while the
301st Infantry cleared Beurig with little
25 Cantey, The 10th U.S. Armored Division in
the Saar-Moselle Triangle, pp. 90–91.
difficulty now that the Germans’ escape
route had been cut, CCB headed east on
the last leg of the drive to relieve the 5th
Ranger Battalion. By midmorning, de-
spite long-range fire from the same Tiger
tank that had caused trouble in Irsch,
contingents of the combat command
reached the Rangers. Hard-pressed by
shelling and counterattacks during the
second day and third morning in their
isolated position, the Rangers had not
only managed to survive but also had
bagged about a hundred Germans. 26
While these events were taking place
beyond the Saar, General Patton had
been fighting a rear guard action against
return of the 10th Armored Division-to
the SHAEF reserve. On 23 February all
Patton could achieve was a 48-hour
respite. When that period expired, he
pleaded with the 12th Army Group com-
mander, General Bradley, for help. Brad-
ley himself took responsibility for letting
Patton use the armor until nightfall of
27 February for the express purpose of
taking Trier. 27
By dawn of 27 February conditions
were good for a quick strike north to
Trier. During the preceding afternoon,
CCB had advanced beyond the Rangers’
roadblock, taking Zerf and gaining a hold
on the highway leading north to Trier,
eleven miles away. Light ponton bridges
were operating both at Taben and Serrig
and a heavy ponton bridge was at Saar-
burg. Only the disturbing fact that
prisoner identifications on 26 February
revealed the presence of a new German
unit, the 2d Mountain Division, ap-
26 Combat Interview with Lt: Col. J . J . Richard-
son, CCB, 10th Armored Division.
27 Patton, War As I Knew It, pp. 246–47; Gay
Diary, entries of 24 and 25 Feb 45.
THE SAAR-MOSELLE TRI ANGLE 133
peared to stand in the way of a rapid
drive to Trier.
Rushed forward by Army Group G to
bolster the sagging LXXXII Corps, the
2d Mountain Division, like so many
other German units, was considerably
less impressive than its name might in-
dicate. Its two infantry regiments, for
example, had only recently been recon-
stituted from supply and other noncom-
batant units, and most of the men were
Austrians lacking fervor for a losing
cause. Utilizing the sharp defiles, woods,
and dense concentrations of pillboxes
below Trier, the mountain division
nevertheless might have proved an effec-
tive delaying force had sizable numbers
of men been able to get into position to
block a northward drive before CCA
started it. As it was, the division, arriving
from the southeast, got there too late and
could be used only to block to the east
and southeast. 28
Defense of Trier itself remained a re-
sponsibility of Army Group B’s Seventh
Army, already sorely pressed by the drive
of the U.S. XI I Corps on Bitburg. By
this time most of the troops of the Sev-
enth Army’s 212th Volks Grenadier Di-
vision, originally charged with defense
of the city, already had gone north to
oppose the XI I Corps and about all that
was left to defend Trier were two local
defense battalions, the city’s police, and
the crews of several stationary 88-mm.
antiaircraft batter ies. 29
At dawn on 27 February, while the
94th Division and the Ranger battalion
sought to expand the Saar bridgehead
to east and southeast, General Morris
28 MS # B–066 (Ingelheim). See also MS #
B–238, Report, 10 February–24 March 1945 (Gen-
eralmajor Wolf Hauser, CofS First Army).
29 MS # B–123 (Gersdorff).
turned CCA north up the main highway
to Trier. As directed by General Patton
the preceding day, the 76th Division of
the XI I Corps turned away from the suc-
cessful drive on Bitburg to head toward
Trier from the north.
For all the lack of solid defensive
units, the Germans on 27 February man-
aged to delay CCA’s column at several
points, usually with isolated tanks or
assault guns lying in ambush in terrain
that restricted CCA’s tanks to one road.
The most serious delay occurred in mid-
afternoon south of the village of Pel-
lingen where a minefield 300 yards deep
disabled two tanks. Armored engineers
had to spend painful hours under small
arms fire clearing a path, and further
advance for the day was stymied.
Since Trier still lay some six miles
away and the appointed hour for release
of the 10th Armored Division had come,
General Patton again had to appeal to
General Bradley for continued use of
the armor until Trier fell. Having had
no word from SHAEF on keeping the
division, Bradley told him to keep going
until higher authority ordered a halt.
And, the 12th Army Group commander
added, he would make it a point to stay
away from the telephone. 30
The morning of 1 March, after CCA
took Pellingen, General Morris sent the
main body of the combat command
northwest to the juncture of the Saar
and the Moselle to prevent any Germans
remaining in West Wall pillboxes along
the Saar from falling back on Trier. A
task force continued up the main road
toward the city while CCB passed
through Pellingen and swung to the
northeast to come upon the objective
30 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 249.
134 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
from the east. I n late afternoon, as both
CCA’s task force and CCB continued
to run into trouble on the fringes of the
city from pillboxes and 88-mm. antiair-
craft pieces, Colonel Roberts, CCB’s
commander, ordered the commander of
the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion,
Lt. Col. J ack J . Richardson, to enter
Trier along a secondary road between
the other two attacking forces. Richard-
son was to head straight for the city’s
two Moselle bridges. 31
The night was clear, the moon full,
and visibility excellent as Task Force
Richardson in early evening started to-
ward Trier. Entering the city before
midnight, the task force encountered a
German company with four antitank
guns, but the surprised Germans sur-
rendered without firing. One of the pris-
oners revealed that he had been detailed
as a runner to notify a demolition team
at one of the bridges when the Americans
arrived.
Splitting his force, Richardson sent
half toward each of the bridges. The
northern team found its bridge blown,
but the team moving to the ancient
Kaiserbruecke, which had stood since
the Roman occupation of Trier in the
earliest days of the Christian era, reported
its bridge intact. Rushing to the bridge
himself in a tank, Colonel Richardson
found his men under small arms fire from
the far bank. Directing .50-caliber ma-
chine gun fire from his tank onto the
far end of the bridge, Richardson or-
31 The following account is based primarily on
combat interviews with Richardson and Maj. C. R.
King (10th Armored Division historian).
dered a platoon of infantry and a pla-
toon of tanks to dash across. As the
infantrymen complied, a German major
and five men ran toward the bridge from
the far side with detonating caps and an
exploder.
They were too late.
It mattered not whether the delay in
blowing the bridge was attributable to
concern for the historic monument or
to the fact that the German officer was
drunk. What mattered was that the 10th
Armored Division had a bridge across
the Moselle.
By morning contingents of Combat
Commands A and B had swept into all
parts of the city, and the prisoner bag
increased as sleepy-eyed Germans awoke
to find American tanks all about them.
Task Force Richardson alone took 800
prisoners. A day later, early on 3 March,
troops of the 76th Division arrived to
establish contact with the armor on the
north bank of the Moselle.
The Orscholz Switch, the Saar-Moselle
triangle, Trier, and the heavily fortified
section of the West Wall around Trier
—all were taken. With the success of the
operation, the Third Army had torn a
gaping hole in the West Wall from
Pruem to a point below Saarburg.
Studying the operations map, General
Patton could see two new inviting pros-
pects before him. Either he could turn
to the southeast and envelop the Saar
industrial area, or he could head through
the Eifel and up the valley of the Moselle
to the Rhine at Koblenz.
I n either case, the Germans appeared
powerless to stop him.
CHAPTER VIII
Operation GRENADE
While the First Army was focusing on
the Roer River dams and the Thi rd
Army probing the Eifel and clearing the
Saar-Moselle triangle, Field Marshal
Montgomery’s 21 Army Group was
launching the new Allied main effort.
Under Montgomery’s plan, General
Crerar’s First Canadian Army was to
open the offensive with Operation VERI-
TABLE, a drive southeastward up the
left bank of the Rhine from positions
gained by the big airborne attack the
preceding fall in the vicinity of Nijme-
gen. A few days later General Simpson’s
Ninth Army from positions along the
Roer River generally northeast of
Aachen was to launch Operation GRE-
NADE, an assault crossing of the Roer
followed by a northeastward drive to
link with the First Canadian Army
along the Rhine. From positions along
the Maas River in between Americans
and Canadians, the Second Army was to
be prepared to make a complementary
attack if required.
Youngest Allied army then opera-
tional on the Continent, the Ninth
Army nevertheless had seen consider-
able fighting-in the conquest of the
Brittany peninsula in September and in
the drive from the German border to
the Roer River in November and early
December. The Ninth Army’s com-
mander, General Simpson, was an infan-
tryman with a distinctive appearance;
he stood over six feet tall and kept his
head clean shaven. Most of his staff were
infantrymen, too, including the chief of
staff, Brig. Gen. J ames E. Moore, and
had come to the theater from a training
command Simpson earlier had held in
the United States. The headquarters al-
ready had established a reputation for
steady, workmanlike performance. As
General Bradley was to put it later, the
Ninth Army, “unlike the noisy and
bumptious Third and the tempera-
mental First,” was “uncommonly nor-
mal.”
During the Ardennes counteroffen-
sive, the Ninth Army had remained on
the defensive, extending its lines north
and south in order to free troops to re-
inforce the First Army. All through
J anuary the army had held a 40-mile
front extending from the vicinity of
Monschau near headwaters of the Roer
downstream to Linnich, northeast of
Aachen. The command included only
five divisions under the XIII Corps
(Maj. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, J r.) and
the XIX Corps (Maj. Gen. Raymond
S. McLain) .
To prepare for Operation GRENADE,
it was necessary both to narrow the
army’s front and to build the army’s
strength to at least ten divisions. Reduc-
1 Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, p. 422.
136 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
GENERAL SIMPSON
ing the frontage by shifting the bound-
ary between the First and Ninth Armies
northward left the Ninth Army with
only its two northernmost divisions, so
that during the early days of February
eight others were moved in. 2
With seven of the army’s ten divisions
in place, boundaries were adjusted on 5
February. The First Army’s VII Corps
relieved the XIX Corps in place from
the vicinity of Monschau to an unfin-
ished autobahn (express highway) run-
ning from Aachen to Cologne; General
Collins assumed control of the 8th and
104th Divisions and subsequently re-
ceived the 3d Armored and 99th Divi-
2 A convenient summary of the moves may be
found in Conquer—The Story of Ni nt h Army
(Washington: Infantry J ournal Press, 1947), one
of the most objective of the unofficial unit his-
tories.
sions. With a zone narrowed to about
eight miles from the autobahn north to
a point beyond J uelich, the XI X Corps
retained the 29th Division on the corps
left and received the 30th Division for
commitment on the right, plus the 2d
Armored and 83d Divisions as reserves.
Although the zone of the XI I I Corps
remained unchanged (from midway be-
tween J uelich and Linnich to a point
four miles downstream from Linnich)
and General Gillem retained control of
the 102d Division, the 84th Division
moved in on 3 February to take over
the northern half of the corps sector and
the 5th Armored Division arrived as a
reserve.
Through the Ardennes fighting, the
Ninth Army’s north flank had rested on
the little Wurm River a few miles
northwest of Linnich. On the other side
of the Wurm, a corps of the Second Brit-
ish Army had been containing a Ger-
man bridgehead west of the Roer, the
Heinsberg pocket, which the British
cleared during J anuary. The Ninth
Army on 6 February then assumed re-
sponsibility for eighteen miles of the
British line as far as the confluence of
the Roer and Maas Rivers at Roermond,
thus enabling the British to release
forces to the First Canadian Army for
Operation VERITABLE. To occupy the
new sector, General Simpson attached
the 8th Armored and 35th Divisions to
a previously uncommitted corps head-
quarters, the XVI Corps (Maj. Gen.
J ohn B. Anderson), and subsequently
provided the 79th Division as a reserve.
The Ninth Army thus had ten divi-
sions along the Roer River with the
greatest weight in the southernmost
XIX Corps. I n addition, the army held
an infantry division, the 95th, in re-
OPERATION GRENADE 137
serve. 3 The total strength of the army
was 303,243 men. Because the First Ar-
my’s VII Corps, which had four divi-
sions, was to support the Ninth Army’s
attack, the corps in effect added addi-
tional strength to the GRENADE force of
approximately 75,000 men. 4
I n direct support of the Ninth Army
was the XXIX Tactical Air Command
(Brig. Gen. Richard E. Nugent), em-
ploying five groups of fighter-bombers
(375 planes) and one tactical recon-
naissance group. For ground fire sup-
port the GRENADE force (the Ninth
Army and the VII Corps) had 130 bat-
talions of field artillery and tank de-
stroyers, totaling more than 2,000 guns,
one of the heaviest concentrations to be
employed on the Western Front. The
two corps making the main effort (XI I I
and XIX) had one artillery piece for
each ten yards of front, plus tanks, tank
destroyers, antiaircraft guns, and infan-
try cannon. 5 I n armor the GRENADE
force had only what had come to be re-
garded as normal in the theater, but a
powerful assembly nonetheless. Each
corps had an armored division and each
infantry division had an attached tank
battalion, a total of 1,394 tanks. More
than two-thirds of these were the old
Sherman with the 75-mm. gun. 6
As the target date for GRENADE ap-
3 A twelfth division, the 75th, while assigned to
the Ninth Army effective 17 February, was placed
under operational control of the British. NUSA
Sitrep, 18 Feb 45.
4 NUSA G–1 Daily Sum, 23 Feb 45; VII Corps
Estimated Loss Report, 2400, 1 Mar 45, VII Corps
G–1 Battle Casualties file.
5 NUSA Artillery Sec AAR, Feb 45; NUSA FA
and TD Info Sum 57, 26 Feb 45; 2d Revised Copy
of Appendix 1 to Annex 3, VII Corps FO 15, 22
Feb 45.
6 NUSA Armored Sec AAR, Feb 45. One of the
separate tank battalions had only light tanks.
proached, the Ninth Army’s accumu-
lated stocks of supplies rose to huge pro-
portions. I n one 5-day period (10–14
February), for example, the army re-
ceived well over 40,000 long tons, the
biggest delivery to any army in the the-
ater in a comparable period. Most of it
arrived by rail in more than 6,000
freight cars. 7
Stocks of gasoline in the army’s depots
rose to over 3 million gallons, repre-
senting over five days of supply with five
days’ reserve. Augmenting ammunition
deliveries with strict rationing, the army
amassed 46,000 tons of ammunition,
equivalent to at least twenty days’ sup-
ply at normal rates of expenditure, four
times the normal army stockage in the
theater. I t enabled all artillery units of
the XIX Corps to place two units of fire
at battery positions in addition to basic
loads. The XI I I Corps provided two
units of fire for artillery of two of its
divisions and one unit for that of the
other two. The weight of the artillery
projectiles that the XIX Corps alone
could throw at the enemy in six days
of combat on a 2-division front was
8,138 tons. 8
The Terrain and the Enemy
I n attacking across the Roer River in
the vicinity of Linnich and J uelich and
advancing northeastward to the Rhine,
7 NUSA G–4 Periodic Rpts and G–4 J nl for the
period.
8 NUSA Quartermaster and Ordnance AAR’s,
Feb 45; Annex 2 to XIX Corps FO 30, 6 Feb 45;
and Annex 5 to XIII Corps FO 5, 8 Feb 45. Total
ammunition allocation for the XIX Corps for the
period D-day to D plus 5 included: 202,880 rounds
for 105-mm. howitzers; 64,800 rounds for 155-mm.
howitzers; 14,400 rounds for 155-mm. guns; 4,500
rounds for 4.5-inch guns; and 9,000 rounds for 8-
inch howitzers. XIX Corps G–4 J nl, 7 Feb 45.
138 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
the Ninth Army was to drive diagonally
across the Cologne plain. Generally flat,
open country traversed by an extensive
network of hard-surfaced roads, the
Cologne plain stretches from the high-
lands of the Eifel to the lowlands of
northern Germany and the Netherlands.
The only high ground worthy of the
name in that part of the plain to be
crossed by the Ninth Army is an egg-
shaped plateau extending eastward from
the vicinity of Linnich and rising no
higher than 400 feet above sea level. Al-
though this gently sloping plateau was
not a critical feature, it drew attention
from the Ninth Army’s planners be-
cause once it was taken, “the remainder
of the attack was all downhill.” 9 The
land throughout the plain is mostly ara-
ble and was planted predominantly in
grain and stock beets. Observation and
fields of fire were excellent.
The only natural military obstacles
were two big forests and two rivers, the
Roer and the Erft. The larger of the for-
ests was in the north. Beginning on the
east bank of the Roer opposite Heins-
berg, it extended northward some
twenty miles to the Dutch border near
Venlo and secreted a portion of the
West Wall. Along with the presence of
a number of small streams immediately
west of the Roer, this obstacle prompted
the Ninth Army’s planners to forgo
Roer crossings in that sector. The other
wooded area was the Hambach Forest,
east and southeast of J uelich. Although
planners originally assigned its capture
to the First Army, on the theory that
responsibility for a critical terrain fea-
ture should not be split, when it became
apparent that the Ninth Army needed
9 Conquer, p. 147.
a broader base for attack, they assigned
the northwestern third of the forest to
the Ninth Army.
As planning for the attack began, the
Roer River dams were still under Ger-
man control, making of the Roer River
a disturbing question mark. While the
Roer is normally a placid stream only
some ninety feet wide, the Ninth Army’s
engineers estimated that a combination
of spring thaws and destruction of the
Roer dams would convert it into a lake
as much as a mile and a half wide. Even
after the waters subsided, the Roer val-
ley would be soft and marshy, impass-
able to vehicles operating off the roads. 10
The planners chose crossing sites at the
narrowest points of the river, mostly at
the locations of destroyed bridges.
As the Roer was critical in determin-
ing the line of departure, so the Erft
guided the northeasterly direction of the
main attack. Cutting diagonally across
the Cologne plain, the Erft splits the
25-mile. distance between the Roer and
the Rhine almost in half. It enters the
Rhine at Neuss, opposite Duesseldorf.
Neither the Erft nor the Erft Canal,
which parallels the river for much of its
course, are major military obstacles, but
a boggy valley floor up to a thousand
yards wide helps turn the waterways
into a good natural defense line. Con-
versely, the river-canal complex might
be utilized as flank protection for north-
eastward advance to the Rhine in the
vicinity of Neuss, the use that the Ninth
Army intended to make of it.
Although American intelligence offi-
cers assumed the enemy would achieve
10 XIX Corps G–2, Terrain’ XIX Corps Front to
Rhine, 30 Oct 44, 406th I nf J nl, Feb 45; 1104th
Engineer Combat Gp Rpt, 28 Feb 45, XIX Corps
AAR, Sec III, Feb 45.
OPERATION GRENADE
139
some defensive advantage from these
natural features, particularly the Roer,
they looked to the villages, towns, and
cities on the plain to provide the core
of resistance. The assumption was natu-
ral in view of the Ninth Army’s ex-
perience in November and December in
driving from the German border to the
Roer, where the Germans had turned
villages into mutually supporting strong-
points.
The biggest city in the zone to be
crossed by GRENADE forces was
Muenchen-Gladbach, a textile center.
With suburbs and a contiguous city of
Rheydt, Muenchen-Gladbach had a pre-
war population of 310,000. Considerably
smaller but vital as road centers were
the towns of Dueren and J uelich on the
Roer, both already almost obliterated by
Allied bombs, and Elsdorf, Erkelenz,
Viersen, Duelken, and Krefeld.
The Germans had augmented the
built-up sectors with extensive field
fortifications that a large foreign labor
force had been constructing since late
fall. There were three lines. The first
hugged the east bank of the Roer. The
other two ran six and eleven miles be-
hind the Roer, the third tying in with
the Erft River. I n the main these forti-
fications consisted of entrenchments in
a sawtooth pattern with exits into the
towns and villages. Antitank obstacles
and emplacements for antitank, antiair-
craft, and field pieces were located at ir-
regular intervals within and between
the lines. Mines and barbed wire were
placed rather spottily along the east
bank of the Roer. 11
11 In addition to intelligence sources previously
cited, see: Photo Defense Overprint maps of 30 J an
and 1 Feb 45 in XIII Corps G–2 J nl, 3 Feb 45; VII
Corps Estimate of the Situation, 22 Feb 45; and
While American G—2’s deemed the
defensive network well planned and or-
ganized, all indications were that the
enemy had far too few troops to man the
lines. This strengthened the belief that
the defense would be based on strong-
points in towns and villages rather than
on a continuous prepared position in
depth. 12
Along the entire Roer front from
south of Dueren to Heinsberg, intelli-
gence officers believed, the Germans had
about 30,000 men supported by 70
tanks. They estimated six divisions with
23,500 men and 110 tanks to be in re-
serve near Cologne. Four miscellaneous
divisions that had been out of contact
for some time were presumed capable
of intervention with 17,000 men and 55
tanks. 13
That was the view on 1 February
when General Eisenhower gave the
word to mount GRENADE, but from that
day on, the Ninth Army noted a steady
decrease in German strength. On 6 Feb-
ruary, for example, General Simpson
observed that the Fifth Panzer Army
still was committed defensively in the
Eifel. Simpson’s hopes rose for a speedy
penetration of the Roer defenses. “We
will have some tough fighting,” he said,
“but I think we are going right
through.” 14
After 8 February, the First Canadian
Army’s drive southward from the Nij-
megen bridgehead (Operation VERI-
30th and 104th Div Estimates of the Situation, 5
and 7 Feb 45, respectively,
12 XIX Corps G–2 Estimate, 17 Feb, and G–2
Periodic Rot. 19 Feb 45.
13 NUSA G–2 Estimate, 2 Feb 45, in XIII Corps
G–2 J nl file, 4 Feb 45.
14 NUSA Ltr of Instrs 13, 6 Feb 45; Notes on
Conf with Officers of 115th Inf, Gen Gerhardt, and
Others, 7 Feb 45, in 115th Inf AAR, Feb 45.
140
THE LAST OFFENSI VE
TABLE) forced the Germans to commit
in the north units from both the gen-
eral reserve near Cologne and the line of
the Maas River opposite the British.
Yet in spite of mud and flood, the
Canadian attack steadily crushed every-
thing the Germans could throw in the
way.
By the end of the first week, the at-
tack had drawn in parts of two para-
chute divisions, the bulk of an infantry
division from the Maas line, and the
15th Panzer Grenadier and 116th Pan-
zer Divisions. Most intelligence officers
then believed that the Panzer Lehr Di-
vision was the only armored reserve left
to Army Groups B and H together. Dur-
ing the next week another parachute
division also was drawn into the fight,
and at the end of the week the Panzer
Lehr too appeared opposite the Cana-
dians. 15
The rapid shuttling of German
troops confused the intelligence picture.
Although commitment of the Panzer
Lehr Division removed the last known
armored division from German reserves,
it was hard to believe that the Germans
would strip their defense of the Cologne
plain completely. Various G–2’s tried to
guess what divisions the Germans might
be able to muster, but the facts re-
mained elusive. The last-minute picture
was of an enemy along the Roer total-
ing some 30,000 men supported by
about 85 assault guns and 30 battalions
of artillery. Two weak infantry divisions
and possibly two armored divisions
might be used to bolster the line. On
the whole, even if the worst possibilities
envisaged by the G–2’s materialized, the
15 Intelligence Sums issued between 11 and 21
Feb by the 12th AGp, 8 and 12 Corps, and XIII
and XIX Corps.
enemy probably would be outnumbered,
by at least five to one.
Catch-as-Catch-Can
Having long anticipated that the Al-
lies would strike again toward the Ruhr
once they eliminated the Ardennes
bulge, Hitler on 22 J anuary, when or-
dering the Sixth Panzer Army to the
east, had directed the Commander in
Chief West, Field Marshal von Rund-
stedt, to regroup to the north. To meet
the threat, Rundstedt proposed
strengthening the southern wing of Army
Group H opposite the British and Ca-
nadians with three divisions culled from
various points. Once Army Group B
had shortened its lines by withdrawing
its southern wing from the Ardennes,
the forces thus released—about three
volks grenadier and three armored or
motorized divisions, plus volks artillery
and volks werfer brigades—were to be
shifted to the army group’s northern
wing along the Roer. 16
A major step in readjusting the front
involved the exchange of sectors be-
tween headquarters of the Fifth Panzer
and Fifteenth Armies. Controlling most
of the remaining armored units, Man-
teuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army then would
be on the north in the most threatened
sector and on terrain suited to armor.
The LVIII Panzer Corps (General der
Panzertruppen Walter Krueger) was to
be fitted with three armored or motor-
ized divisions and positioned behind the
Roer line as an army group reserve.
No one—least of all Rundstedt—
could have been sanguine about the
situation. No one more than this old
16 Unless otherwise noted, German material is
based on MS # C-020 (Schramm).
OPERATI ON GRENADE 141
soldier appreciated the difficulties of
making the various transfers and meet-
ing the new drive once it began. Gaso-
line shortages, unseasonal February
thaws that turned highways previously
blocked by ice and snow into quagmires,
bomb damage to the limited rail net in
the Eifel, responsibility for shipping the
Sixth Panzer Army to the east, the way
Allied aircraft denied almost all day-
light movement, personnel and materiel
losses in the Ardennes—all combined to
project a dismal picture.
“I am not a pessimist,” Rundstedt re-
ported on 12 February, “but in view of
the decisive nature of the coming bat-
tles, I consider it my duty to give a clear
report of the situation as I see it.” 17
I n all of Army Group B, Rundstedt
said, infantry strength amounted to the
equivalent of forty-five battalions or six
and a half full divisions. Within the
Fifth Panzer and Seventh Armies, each
battalion faced two-thirds of an enemy
division, and within the Fifteenth Army,
most threatened of all until the shift
with the Fifth Panzer Army could be
made, an entire division. Nor could re-
serves to improve the balance in the
Fifteenth Army be assembled and
shifted as quickly as additional Ameri-
can forces could be expected to arrive.
The proportion of forces on the Fif-
teenth Army’s front was destined to be
at least two and a half times less favor-
able than during the prolonged fighting
west of the Roer in November; avail-
able artillery ammunition would be less
than a third that expended in the earlier
fighting.
As Allied intelligence had detected,
the American drive from the Ardennes
17 As quoted by Schramm.
into the Eifel and the Canadian attack
southeastward from Nijmegen seriously
interfered with German efforts to
strengthen the line behind the Roer. Of
particular concern was the necessity to
shift the 116th Panzer and Panzer Lehr
Divisions to oppose the Canadians. The
116th still would be engaged there when
Operatn GRENADE jumped off, and the
Panzer Lehr would be withdrawn into
reserve only on the very eve of Opera-
tion GRENADE. General Krueger’s LVI I I
Panzer Corps could not be withheld as a
reserve but had to be committed in the
line in command not of armor but of
infantry. Nor would the projected shift
of headquarters of the Fifth Panzer and
Fifteenth Armies be completed before
the American attack began. Because of
the continuing American drive in the
Eifel, the exchange would be delayed
until the Americans were well beyond
the Roer. 18
As D-day for Operation GRENADE ap-
proached, the German lineup in the
threatened sector was as follows: From a
boundary in the north near Roermond,
corresponding to the boundary between
British and Americans, Army Group B’s
Fifteenth Army (General von Zangen)
was responsible for a front some fifty
miles long, extending south to include
Dueren. The northern third was held
by the XII SS Corps (Generalleutnant
Eduard Crasemann) with two infantry
divisions; the center around Linnich by
the LXXXI Corps (General der Infan-
terie Friedrich Koechling) with two in-
fantry divisions bolstered by a volks
artillery corps; and the southern third
around Dueren by the LVIII Panzer
18 Magna E. Bauer, Reorganization of the West-
ern Front, MS prepared in OCMH to complement
this volume.
142
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Corps (Krueger) with a volks grenadier
division and an infantry division, also
bolstered by a volks artillery corps.
The Fifteenth Army had no reserves.
Army Group B’s reserves consisted of
the 9th Panzer Division, assembled
along the Erft River east of J uelich,
and the 11th Panzer Division, the latter
in process of assembling near Muenchen-
Gladbach after Hitler personally or-
dered the division pulled out of the
Saar-Moselle triangle. Neither panzer
division was anywhere near full strength.
Tanks and assault guns in all of Army
Group B totaled only 276. 19
Operation GRENADE was destined to
strike a front manned and equipped on
a catch-as-catch-can basis.
Objectives and Maneuvers
Against this enemy whose numbers
were small, whose arms were weak,
whose spirit faltered, the GRENADE force
planned to deliver a paralyzing blow.
So obviously expected, the attack per-
mitted no subtlety; success was staked
on power. Although General Simpson
decided against air bombardment in
favor of starting by night, more than
2,000 big guns were to pound the enemy
for forty-five minutes before H-hour.
Of the four American corps, three were
to cross the river at H-hour, each with
two infantry divisions to the fore, on a
front from Linnich to Dueren, only
seventeen miles long. The remaining
corps was to move at H-hour to clear a
few enemy nests remaining on the west
bank of the Roer while simulating a
19 MS # B–811, Fifteenth Army, 15 November
1944–22 February 1945 (General der Infanterie
Gustav von Zangen) and Operationskarte West,
Chef WFSt, 22 and 23 Feb 45.
GENERAL VON ZANGEN
full-blooded crossing north of Heins-
berg.
The objective of the first phase of
operations was to place the Ninth Army
astride the egg-shaped plateau east of
Linnich with the army’s right flank an-
chored on the Erft River. Since this in-
volved a wheel to the north, General
McLain’s XI X Corps on the outer rim
would make the longest advance, while
the First Army’s VII Corps protected the
Ninth Army’s right flank by establishing
a bridgehead around Dueren and then
clearing the bulk of the Hambach For-
est and gaining the Erft near Elsdorf.
I n the second phase, the Ninth Army
was to extend its bridgehead north and
northwest, with the main job falling to
OPERATION GRENADE 143
General Gillem’s XI I I Corps. By taking
the road center of Erkelenz and clearing
the east bank of the Roer to a point west
of Erkelenz, the XI I I Corps was to open
the way for an unopposed crossing of
the river by General Anderson’s XVI
Corps.
What happened next depended on
whether conditions favored rapid ma-
neuver or forced a plodding infantry
advance. Given slackening resistance
and firm footing for tanks, General
Simpson intended to push immediately
with full strength to envelop Muenchen-
Gladbach from south and east, then
drive on to the Rhine. Should the ar-
mor be roadbound or the enemy stub-
born, the two corps on the left were to
make the main effort, rolling up the
West Wall fortifications as far north as
Venlo and clearing the big forest lying
between Roermond and Muenchen-
Gladbach. With supply routes then
open from Heinsberg to Roermond, the
army was to hit Muechen-Gladbach
from west and south and push on to the
Rhine.
Both plans conservatively assumed or-
ganized resistance throughout the Co-
logne plain. On the other hand, General
Simpson added, “If the violence of our
attack should cause disruption of the
enemy resistance, each corps will be pre-
pared to conduct relentless pursuit in
zone, and phases will be abandoned in
favor of taking full advantage of our
opportunity.” 20
All plans were complete in expecta-
tion of a D-day on 10 February when,
on the eve of the attack, the Germans
destroyed the discharge valves on the
20 NUSA Ltr of Instrs 10 28 J an 45; Conquer,
pp. 147–51.
Roer dams. Not for about twelve days
would the water in the reservoirs be ex-
hausted. 21
Upstream from Dueren, where the
river’s banks are relatively high, the
worst effect of the flood was to increase
the current sharply, at some points to
more than ten miles an hour. Down-
stream along most of its length, the Roer
poured over its banks and inundated the
valley floor. J ust north of Linnich where
the river is normally 25 to 30 yards wide,
it spread into a lake more than a
mile wide. More common were inunda-
tions of 300 to 400 yards. The ground
on both sides of the flooded floor was
soft and spongy. While engineers
watched over the slowly receding river,
GRENADE underwent successive post-
ponements. 22
Acting on advice of the engineers,
General Simpson at last set D-day for 23
February, one day before the reservoirs
presumably would be drained. Although
the river still was in flood, it had re-
ceded eight to fourteen inches below the
peak, and the current at few places ex-
ceeded six miles an hour. By seizing the
first practicable moment when the river
might be crossed with reasonable chance
of success instead of awaiting a return
to normal, General Simpson hoped to
achieve some measure of
I n making the attack, leading waves
were to cross the river in assault boats,
while follow-up troops were to use foot-
21 See above, ch. V.
22 For analysis of the flood, see II Corps Engi-
neers, Operations in the European Theater, VI;
NUSA G–2 AAR, Feb 45; XIII Corps G–2 AAR,
Feb 45; XIX Corps G–2 Spot Rpt, 14 Feb 45; 102d
Div G–3 J nl, 10 Feb 45.
25 Conquer, pp. 165-66; 104th Div G–2 Periodic
Rpt 119, 22 Feb 45; 30th Div G–3 J ul, 20 Feb 45;
102d Div G–3 J ul, 22 Feb 45.
144
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
BURSTS OF WHITE PHOSPHORUS SHELLS LIGHT UP THE ROER RIVER AT LINNICH
bridges that engineers were to begin
constructing at H-hour. I n all divisions
except the 84th, which was to cross on a
one-battalion front, the number of as-
sault boats was insufficient for the first
wave, so that units had to plan to shut-
tle or find other means of crossing. Since
shuttling in frail assault boats might
break down in the face of a strong cur-
rent, the 8th Division proposed to make
motor-driven double-boat ferries of its
assault boats. Some other units planned
to rely on cable ferries or LVT’s (land
vehicles, tracked), amphibious tractors
nicknamed alligators.
Each assault division in the Ninth
Army planned to screen its crossing sites,
either by smoke generators and pots
placed on the west bank or by phos-
phorus shells fired across the river by
chemical mortars. A smoke generator
company and a chemical mortar battal-
ion were in support of each corps. I n the
adjacent VII Corps, General Collins
delegated the decision on using smoke
to the assault division commanders. 24
Within each division sector, attached
corps engineers were to start at H-hour
24 VII Corps Engineers, Operations in the Euro-
pean Theater, VI.
OPERATION GRENADE 145
to build at least three vehicular bridges.
Although the threat posed by the Roer
dams had passed, each division still was
to carry five days’ supply of rations and
gasoline against the possibility that
bridging might be delayed or knocked
out. To assure ammunition supply
points beyond the Roer soon after the
crossings, the XI X Corps attached two
truck companies to each of its two as-
sault divisions, while the XI I I Corps
planned to use three companies under
corps control for the same purpose. 25
I n case bridges went out, LVT’s and
dukws (2½-ton amphibious trucks)
were to ferry essential supplies. Al-
though emergency airdrops probably
would be unnecessary since the threat
from the Roer dams had ended, 500
C–47 transport planes loaded with
enough supplies to maintain one divi-
sion in combat for one day remained on
call. 26
Challenging t he Swollen Ri ver
On the night of 22 February, the
GRENADE force stirred. No sooner was it
dark than infantrymen began moving
into cellars as close as possible to the riv-
er’s edge. Engineers started transporting
boats and bridging equipment to within
easy carrying distance of the water. Ar-
tillerymen were careful to fire no more
than normal concentrations lest the en-
emy discern from increased fire what
was afoot. 27
25 XIX Corps Admin Order 15, 7 Feb 45; XIII
Corps Flood Plan, 8 Feb 45; XIII Corps G–4 AAR,
Feb 45.
26 XIII Corps G–4 AAR and Engineer AAR, Feb
45; XIX Corps AAR, Sec I V, Feb 45; NUSA G–4
AAR, Feb 45.
27 Unless specifically noted, sources for all com-
bat actions are official records and combat inter-
views of units involved.
The enemy thus far had given no sign
that he knew the long-expected attack
was at hand. Although an occasional
German plane appeared over the flat-
lands west of the Roer before dark, all
seemed to be on routine reconnaissance
or bombing and strafing missions. In-
coming artillery and mortar shells were
few.
I n higher German headquarters, at-
tention still was focused on the Thi rd
Army’s attacks on Bitburg and Trier
and the First Canadian Army’s drive in
the north. Employing a Canadian corps
on the left and a British corps on the
right, Operation VERITABLE had carried
approximately seventeen miles from
jump-off positions along the Dutch
frontier near Nijmegen, more than a
third of the distance to final objectives
along the Rhine upstream from Wesel. 28
Beginning at 0245 on the 23d, the
massed artillery began its thunderous
bombardment. Forty-five minutes later,
infantrymen of six divisions lowered as-
sault boats into the swollen Roer to do
battle from the first with a treacherous
current.
Because the river spread into wide
inundations both north and south of
Linnich, the 84th Division (Maj. Gen.
Alexander R. Bolling) of the XI I I Corps
had to cross at a destroyed highway
bridge on a one-battalion front within
the town, where, by contrast, the river
was still in a narrow channel. ( Map
VI) The first wave got over with rela-
tive ease. “I really don’t know whether
28 For operations of the First Canadian Army, see
Col. C. P. Stacey, The Victory Campaign—Opera-
tion in Northwest Europe, 1944–1945, “Official
History of the Canadian Army in the Second
World War,” vol. III (Ottawa: The Queen’s
Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1960), pp.
460–526.
CROSSING SITES AT LINNICH
OPERATION GRENADE 147
the enemy fired any shots at us or not,”
said 1st Lt. Richard Hawkins of the
334th Infantry’s Company A. “Our own
guns going off all around us . . .
drowned out all other sounds.” 29 Al-
though the current hurled two boats far
downstream, the bigger problem was a
drift of almost all boats some seventy-
five yards downstream, making it diffi-
cult in the darkness to get them back to
the crossing site for the second wave.
Engineers beginning at H-hour to
build three footbridges ran into diffi-
culties with all three. One was almost
completed when bypassed Germans
opened fire with automatic weapons,
making it impossible to anchor the
bridge on the east bank. Another had
no sooner been completed when an as-
sault boat plunged downstream from
the neighboring division’s sector and
knocked it out. A direct hit on a cable
by an enemy shell knocked out a third
just as it too was almost completed.
The follow-up battalion had to cross
by shuttle with the few assault boats
that could be retrieved. When one foot-
bridge finally completed just before
noon stayed in, the engineers aban-
doned attempts to build others and con-
centrated on vehicular bridges. An in-
fantry support bridge was ready for light
vehicles by 1730, but a treadway bridge,
finished three hours later, had to be
closed when a German plane strafed and
damaged it. Only after more than four
hours were spent on repairs was the
treadway again ready for traffic; men of
the 84th Division thus spent all of D-
day on the east bank without tank or
tank destroyer support.
29 Theodore Draper, The 84th Infantry Division
in the Battle for Germany (New York: The Viking
Press, 1946), p. 145. An excellent unit history.
I n the sector of the 102d Division
(Maj. Gen. Frank A. Keating) on the
right wing of the XI I I Corps upstream
from Linnich, two regiments made the
assault. As in the 84th’s sector, fire from
the east bank was meager, partly because
a patrol had crossed thirty minutes
before H-hour and knocked out four
machine guns in front of the 407th In-
fantry. Near misses from mortar fire up-
set several craft carrying men of the
405th Infantry, but rubber life vests
saved the men from drowning.
Again it was the second wave that ran
into most difficulty, for the current car-
ried many of the boats used by the first
wave far downstream where they impo-
tently sat out successive stages of the
assault. When the follow-up battalion
of the 405th Infantry reached the river,
the men could find at first only two
boats. After an intensive search turned
up a few more, one company got across.
Other men meanwhile tried LVT’s, but
so muddy was the far bank that these
craft could not get far enough up for the
men to disembark. As in the 84th Divi-
sion’s sector, an LVT went out of con-
trol, crashed into a partially completed
infantry support bridge, and sent parts
of the bridge careening downstream.
The struggle to build bridges was for
the 102d Division also a discouraging
task. When engineers completed the first
footbridge for the 405th Infantry just
before daylight, German artillery
promptly knocked it out. They put in
another about the same time for the
407th Infantry, but enemy shelling was
too intense for the infantry to use it.
Spattered by shell fragments, the bridge
spanned the river for three hours before
a tree fell on it, snapped a cable, and
set the pontoons adrift. Shortly after
148
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
DERELICT ASSAULT BOATS NEAR LINNICH
midday the engineers at last opened a
workable footbridge and a support
bridge suitable for light vehicles.
The infantry support bridge had a
short life; no sooner had the 407th’s
antitank company with its towed 57-mm.
guns crossed than a shell knocked it out.
Getting sufficient antitank support to
the far bank became a major concern,
for by noon signs of impending counter-
attack had begun to develop in front of
the 102d Division. With the infantry
support bridge finally operating again
about 2100, General Keating ordered
every 57-mm. gun in the division to be
towed across immediately.
Although other engineers opened a
treadway bridge about the same time,
just as a company of tank destroyers
started to cross three low-flying German
planes knocked out the bridge. Another
treadway was completed before mid-
night, but before tank destroyers could
use it trucks loaded with rubble had to
cross and build up a soggy exit route on
the far bank. 30 It was well after mid-
30 Maj Allan H Mick, ed., With the 102 d Infantry Division
Through Germany (Washington Infantry J ournal Press, 1947),
p 129
OPERATION GRENADE
149
SMOKE POTS ALONG THE ROER NEAR DUEREN
night before tank destroyers in appre-
ciable numbers began to move beyond
the river.
Two miles upstream to the south in
the sector of General McLain’s XIX
Corps the swollen river proved as big an
obstacle to successful assault as it had
for the XI I I Corps. There the 29th Di-
vision was to cross around J uelich, the
30th Division three miles farther up-
stream.
Both assault regiments of the 29th
Division (Maj. Gen. Charles H. Ger-
hardt) faced special crossing problems.
North of J uelich, no bridges were to be
built for the 115th Infantry because the
flooded Roer was more than 400 yards
wide. Both the first wave and the follow-
up units were to cross in assault boats
and LVT’s, with additional forces cross-
ing later over bridges to be built at J ue-
lich for the 175th Infantry.
The 175th, on the other hand, was to
depend almost entirely on bridges,
since the river alongside the east bank
town of J uelich flows between high
banks. Half an hour before the end of
the artillery preparation, two 25-man
patrols were to cross in assault boats to
stake out small holdings where engi-
CROSSING SITES AT J UELICH
OPERATION GRENADE 151
neers, working under a smoke screen,
could anchor footbridges over which the
assault battalions were to cross.
Despite fire from German machine
guns, one patrol got across the river. Of
two boats carrying the other patrol, one
capsized and the current washed the
other far downstream.
Working at the site of a destroyed
highway bridge, engineers completed a
footbridge in less than an hour. Al-
though an assault boat loaded with men
crashed into the bridge and knocked it
out, engineers had it back in service by
0600. The first infantrymen then crossed
on a dead run. Within another hour,
two more footbridges were in.
Previously undetected mines on west-
bank approaches to the 115th Infantry’s
crossing site meantime threatened to de-
lay the other assault. A tank maneuver-
ing into a supporting position struck a
mine, blocking the road leading to the
river, and a tankdozer trying to remove
the disabled tank set off another mine.
The leading LVT bringing troops to
the site also hit a mine, blocking the
column of LVT’s behind it. Officers on
the scene directed the infantry to dis-
mount and join other units crossing by
assault boat. The mishap delayed the
first wave by twenty minutes, but the
LVT’s soon found a bypass around the
disabled vehicles.
From this point German fire added a
new dimension to the problems facing
the engineers. Long-range machine gun
fire played on one footbridge for much
of the morning. A mortar shell struck
another while stretcher bearers were
crossing with a wounded man. 31 Two
31 J oseph H. Ewing, 29 Let’s Go! A History of
the 29th Infantry Division in World War II
artillery hits on a partially completed
treadway bridge prompted engineers to
shift the site a few hundred yards up-
stream where houses in J uelich provided
a measure of concealment. Tanks and
bulldozers began to cross in late after-
noon, the bulldozers to clear paths
through the rubble that air and artillery
bombardment had made of the town.
Upstream from J uelich, the 30th Di-
vision (General Hobbs) faced perhaps
the most forbidding stretch of waterline
along the entire front. At only two
points, both on the division’s right wing,
was the river considered at all narrow
enough for crossings.
Going the 29th Division one better,
the 119th Infantry near the village of
Schophoven sent a patrol of twenty-five
riflemen to the east bank more than an
hour before start of the artillery prepara-
tion. With the patrol providing a screen,
engineers were to begin work on a foot-
bridge at the same time the preliminary
shelling began.
At 0215 engineers followed the patrol
across in assault boats, dragging behind
them prefabricated duckboard bridges
to be used to get the infantry across a
canal that at this point parallels the
Roer. (A patrol had discovered only
forty-eight hours before the attack that
the canal was too deep for fording.) As
the big artillery bombardment began, a
battalion of infantry started crossing in
assault boats. By the time the last shells
fell, a footbridge was in place and the
rest of the regiment was racing across.
The 120th Infantry a few hundred
yards upstream had no such success. Al-
though the original plan for crossing had
(Washington: Infantry J ournal Press, 1948), p.
233. Thi s is an excellent unit history.
152
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
FOOTBRIDGE ACROSS THE ROER SERVES MEN OF THE 30TH DIVISION
been much the same, a patrol only the
night before had discovered that the
current was too swift at that point for
assault boats. The engineers quickly
made plans for two cable ferries, but
they were able to fasten a rope on the
far bank for only one. Almost two hours
before the artillery preparation began,
a company of infantrymen began to pull
themselves across in rubber boats, but
the current proved too swift even for
that method. Only thirty men reached
the east bank.
Engineers succeeded finally in fasten-
ing an anchor cable for a footbridge just
before the preparation fires began. Yet
from that moment everything seemed to
go wrong. German artillery fire cut the
first cable. A second snagged in debris
and snapped. A mortar shell cut a third.
A fourth held long enough for engi-
neers to construct about fifty feet of
bridge before the current snapped the
cable and the bridge buckled. Doggedly,
the engineers tried again. This time the
cable stayed, but the coming of daylight
brought such increased German shelling
that darkness had fallen on D-day be-
fore they got a footbridge in.
The 120th Infantry had resorted to
OPERATION GRENADE 153
LVT’s to get the bulk of two companies
across the Roer not long after the official
H-hour of 0330, while the rest of the
regiment later in the day crossed on the
footbridge constructed for the 119th In-
fantry. The problem of getting the in-
fantry across at last solved, all hands
could turn to a treadway bridge that
other engineers already had started. Not
until midnight was this bridge com-
pleted; men of the 30th Division, like
those of the 84th, had spent all of D-day
without tank or tank destroyer support.
As costly as German shelling proved
to be in the 30th Division’s sector and
elsewhere, it would have been consider-
ably greater had it not been for the use
of smoke. The 29th and 30th Divisions
used both smoke pots and chemical
smoke generators. The 30th Division be-
gan its screen before dawn and kept it
up, not for twelve hours as planned, but
for thirty-three, in itself testimony to
the effectiveness of the screen. The 102D,
Division discontinued its screen after
less than two hours because it interfered
with directing artillery fire. The other
two divisions, the 84th and 102D, de-
pended primarily on smoke pots em-
placed along the west bank, although
both used white phosphorus shells fired
by chemical mortars to assist the first
waves. The 102d, Division maintained
one smoke screen as a feint at a point
where no crossing was contemplated.
The smoke drew enemy fire while at the
true crossing site nearby, unscreened,
scarcely any shells fell.
The First Day on the East Bank
The Roer was unquestionably diffi-
cult. I n the face of a capable, determined
enemy on the east bank, it could have
proven far more costly. Fortunately for
the eventual outcome of Operation
GRENADE, the enemy in general was
neither capable nor determined.
Opposite Linnich, the 84th Division
had the good fortune to strike almost
astride a German corps boundary. The
lone unit in the assault, the 334th In-
fantry’s 1st Battalion, hit the extreme
north flank of the 59th Infantry Divi-
sion of Koechling’s LXXXI Corps, tak-
ing the Germans by surprise and occupy-
ing the village of Koerrenzig before day-
light. At that point the 1st Battalion
turned north in keeping with the mis-
sion of clearing enough of the east bank
of the Roer for the neighboring XVI
Corps to cross unopposed. I n the proc-
ess the battalion began to roll up from
the flank defenses of the 183d Infantry
Division of Crasemann’s XII SS Corps.
By nightfall the 1st Battalion was ap-
proaching the crossroads village of Baal,
three miles from the crossing site, while
the 335th Infantry came in to seal the
334th’s flank to the east.
Baal was one of only three places
where the Germans on D-day mustered
counterattacks. As night was approach-
ing, a battalion of the 183d Division
supported by several tanks or assault
guns drove south out of Baal at the same
time men of the 334th Infantry were
trying to break into the village. Ameri-
can artillery and eager Thunderbolts of
the XXIX Tactical Air Command broke
up the enemy thrust before the opposing
forces could actually clash on the
ground. Occupying Baal proved rela-
tively simple after that, though just be-
fore midnight three understrength Ger-
man battalions struck with considerable
verve. For a while the conflict was in-
tense on the periphery of the village,
154 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
but by morning small arms and artillery
fire had driven the Germans off. 32
The day’s strongest German counter-
action developed to the south against
the 102d Division. There the 407th In-
fantry on the north wing had taken the
enemy in the village of Gevenich by
surprise, seizing 160 prisoners, and in
the afternoon occupied an adjacent vil-
lage to the north. The 405th Infantry
on the south wing entered Tetz, south-
ernmost of the day’s objectives, against
minor opposition; but because of diffi-
culties at the crossing sites, it was
midafternoon before the regimental
commander, Col. Laurin L. Williams,
could send a force northeastward against
two other objectives, Boslar, two miles
from the Roer, and Hompesch.
Despite a no-minute artillery prepara-
tion fired by fourteen battalions, the
men of the 405th Infantry had gotten
no farther than Boslar when darkness
came. Something had infused new spirit
into the defending troops of the 59th
Division, whose performance elsewhere
on D-day had been, at best, lackluster.
That something was an impending
counterattack, signs of which the Amer-
icans had been detecting since just be-
fore noon.
As the broad outlines of the Ninth
Army’s attack emerged during the morn-
ing of 23 February, the Army Group B
commander, Field Marshal Model, had
acted swiftly to place his reserves, the
9th and 11th Panzer Divisions, at the
disposal of the Fifteenth Army. Al-
though Model had intended to employ
the two divisions together under an ad
32 MS # B–812, Fifteenth Army, 23–28 February
1945 (General der Infanterie Gustav von Zangen) ;
Draper, The 84th Division in the Battle for Ger-
many, pp. 151–54.
hoc corps commanded by a tank special-
ist, Generalleutnant Fritz Bayerlein, not
enough of the 11th Panzer Division had
yet arrived from the Saar-Moselle tri-
angle to justify that arrangement. The
Fifteenth Army commander, General
von Zangen, early decided to attach in-
crements of the two divisions as they
arrived to Koechling’s LXXXI Corps.
Although Zangen had yet to determine
the exact location of the American main
effort, he deduced from analysis of cross-
ing sites along the Roer that it probably
was directed against the LXXXI
Corps. 33
While attachment of the panzer divi-
sions augured well for the future, it
would be at least the next day before
any part of the divisions could arrive.
For immediate counterattack, the
LXXXI Corps commander, General
Koechling, had to depend on his own
slender resources. These were two infan-
try battalions, one each from his two
divisions, plus remnants of two separate
tank battalions and an understrength
assault gun brigade.
Returning the infantry battalions to
division control, Koechling gave each
division a company of the assault gun
brigade with twelve to fourteen 75-mm.
guns and smaller portions of the two
tank battalions. The 59th Division
then was to strike toward Gevenich, the
363d Infantry Division toward Boslar
and Tetz.
The 102d Division commander, Gen-
eral Keating, meanwhile reacted to the
indications of impending counterattack
33 German material from MSS # C–020
(Schramm); # B–812 (Zangen); # B–576, LXXXI
Corps, 25 J anuary–21 March 1945 (General der
Infanterie Friedrich Koechling); # B–053, Corps
Bayerlein, 11 February-5 March 1945 (General-
leutant Fritz Bayerlein).
I
OPERATION GRENADE 155
by ordering his reserve, the 406th Infan-
try, into position south and east of Tetz.
The 405th and 406th Infantry Regi-
ments then formed a defensive arc ex-
tending from high ground between
Gevenich and Boslar, through Boslar,
and back to the river south of Tetz. The
407th Infantry on the north continued
to hold Gevenich and the next village
to the north. Confident of his strength
in infantry, General Keating felt keenly
his lack of antitank support on the east
bank. I t was this concern that through
the afternoon and evening punctuated
the engineers’ futile efforts to keep
bridges functioning across the Roer in
hope of getting tanks and tank destroy-
ers across.
As it turned out, the defenders at
both Gevenich and Boslar had to rely
primarily on artillery fire and bazookas.
Although the German thrust at Geve-
nich proved relatively weak and caused
little concern, the Germans at Boslar
attacked at least seven times. The first
thrust hit just before 2100, employing
a mixed force of about 20 assault guns
and tanks accompanied by about 150
infantry. While American artillery fire
was dispersing tanks and infantry before
they reached Boslar, some of the infan-
try bypassed the village and penetrated
the lines of a battalion of the 406th In-
fantry. A reserve rifle company sealed
off that penetration.
I n subsequent thrusts, some infantry
and tanks got into the streets of Boslar.
It was a night, said the commander of
the defending battalion, Lt. Col. Eric E.
Bischoff, of “indescribable confu-
sion.” 34 Infantrymen accounted for four
34 Combat interview with Bischoff.
Mark V tanks with bazookas. Still the
Germans persisted.
What the Americans reckoned as the
fourth try brought the gravest crisis.
Three hours before dawn on 24 Febru-
ary, tanks and infantry swarmed into
the village. While the Americans hud-
dled in cellars, forward observers called
down artillery fire on their own posi-
tions. By daylight the Germans had
fallen back, and a count revealed a sur-
prisingly low total of thirty American
casualties.
I n the sector of the XIX Corps, the
Germans launched no counterattacks
and in general proffered no stiffer pas-
sive resistance than against the XI I I
Corps. The defending troops were from
the same 363d Division that gave the
102d Division such a hard time at Bos-
lar.
The 115th Infantry, on the north wing
of the 29th Division, had no trouble
taking the village of Broich, but when
the men moved out toward high ground
to the northeast on which they intended
to anchor the division’s bridgehead, they
encountered grazing fire from automatic
weapons emplaced in farm houses and
entrenchments on the reverse slope. Not
until darkness came and the men made
a stealthy night attack was this position
secured.
The 175th Infantry in the meantime
had run into less resistance in J uelich
than expected, but clearing Germans
from the debris of the destroyed town
remained a slow process. By nightfall
J uelich was in hand except for the Cita-
del, a medieval fortress surrounded by a
moat. According to plan, the assault
companies left the Citadel for follow-up
troops to clear.
In the adjacent 30th Division, the ad-
156 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
vance proceeded apace, despite the prob-
lems inherent in crossing at a wide part
of the flooded Roer. A battalion of the
119th Infantry on the north was in the
first village rooting Germans from cel-
lars less than fifteen minutes after the
artillery preparation lifted. Soon after
dawn the same battalion cleared another
village to the north.
Leading companies of the 120th In-
fantry had harder going because of an
extensive antipersonnel minefield in a
patch of woods near the village of Kraut-
hausen. The 2d Battalion took at least
seventy-five casualties in the woods but
still jumped off before dawn against
Krauthausen and the neighboring vil-
lage to the south. One company employ-
ing marching fire took the latter village
at the cost of one killed and two
wounded, while two companies envel-
oped Krauthausen from south and
north.
Both regiments then used follow-up
units to push out to slightly higher
ground to the east. The 119th Infantry
also sent a battalion against a village at
the edge of the Hambach Forest and
took it by midafternoon.
Since the 30th Division would be on
the outside of the Ninth Army’s wheel
to the north with the farthest to go of
the four assault divisions, the com-
mander, General Hobbs, decided to keep
going through the night. Reserve bat-
talions of both assault regiments moved
northeastward before midnight against
Hambach and Niederzier, the only vil-
lages remaining in the division’s sector
short of the Hambach Forest. Distant
American searchlights bouncing light off
clouds made twilight of the darkness. 35
35 Among American units, the Ninth Army had
Five battalions of artillery fired at
maximum rate to help men of the 119th
Infantry into Hambach. They timed
their concentrations to allow the infan-
try five minutes to cross on a dead run
from the line of departure to the first
houses. The village fell with only a few
shots fired. Most of a 126-man German
garrison had to be routed from cellars
where they had retired to sit out the
American shelling.
The scheme of maneuver and results
in the attack on Niederzier were similar.
When shells armed with proximity fuzes
exploded over open trenches west of the
village the Germans “just got up and
left.” 36 The 120th Infantry lost not a
man.
With some relatively unimportant ex-
ceptions, the XI X Corps as dawn came
held all its planned D-day bridgehead;
yet difficulties could still lie ahead in the
Hambach Forest, where the Germans
well might elect to stand, or might arise
from an open corps right flank. The un-
protected right flank had developed be-
cause the First Army’s VII Corps,
charged with protecting the flank, had
been having the hardest fight of all to
get across the Roer and stay there.
The VII Corps at Dueren
As protection for the Ninth Army’s
wheel, General Collins’s VI I Corps of
the First Army had to make the deepest
penetration of all, to the Erft River be-
yond Elsdorf, thirteen miles from the
Roer at Dueren, and do the job with its
pioneered in use of battlefield illumination during
the drive to the Roer in November. See Mac-
Donald, Th e Siegfried Line Campaign.
36 Combat interview wi th Maj. Cris McCullough,
ExecO, 1st Bn, 120 Inf.
OPERATION GRENADE 157
own right flank exposed for at least two
days until another corps to the south
joined the attack. The zone of the VII
Corps further included two obstacles
expected to be strongly contested: ruins
of the town of Dueren and most of the
Hambach Forest.
As in the corps of the Ninth Army, the
VII Corps was to employ two divisions
to assault the river line, the 104th (Maj.
Gen. Terry de la Mesa Allen) on the
left, the 8th (Maj. Gen. William G.
Weaver) on the right. 37 Because Dueren
was the hub of communications to east
and northeast, Collins divided the town
between the two divisions. The infan-
trymen first were to establish a bridge-
head anchored on high ground about
four miles from the Roer, from the vil-
lage of Oberzier in the north to Stock-
heim in the south. At that point Collins
intended to send the 4th Cavalry Group
to clear the Hamback Forest while the
3d Armored Division passed through the
infantry to gain the Erft.
To even a greater degree than the
rest of the GRENADE force, the VII
Corps would find the swollen Roer the
biggest obstacle to achieving D-day ob-
jectives. Because the current everywhere
might prove too swift for footbridges,
all the assault infantry were to cross by
boat, each regiment with two battalions
abreast. A platoon of engineers with fif-
teen or sixteen boats was assigned to
each rifle company in the first wave,
while corps engineers held sixty boats in
37 Unofficial histories of these two divisions—Leo
A. Hoegh and Howard J . Doyle, Timberwolf
Trucks (Washington: Infantry J ournal Press, 1946).
and Lt. Marc F. Griesgach, Combat History of t he
Eighth Infantry Division in World War II (Baton
Rouge: Army and Navy Publishing Co., 1945)—are
useful more for color than for following the action
in detail.
reserve. At the last minute, both divi-
sion commanders decided against using
smoke lest it hinder artillery observa-
tion and confuse infantrymen moving
through build-up urban areas on the
east bank.
The bulk of the first waves of the
415th Infantry, on the north wing of the
104th Division, got across with little
difficulty, although the current and
small arms fire turned one company
back. Crossing opposite the northern
fringe of Dueren, the 413th Infantry’s
1st Battalion had more trouble. After
the first company had crossed without
opposition, German artillery and ma-
chine guns opened fire. Eight boats-of
Company C stuck on the top of a check
dam and then upset. The rest of the 1st
Battalion shifted to the 415th Infantry’s
sector to cross.
By daylight German artillery fire be-
gan to make the engineers’ job all but
impossible. Northwest of the Dueren
suburb of Birkesdorf, work began on an
infantry support bridge at 0415, but fif-
teen minutes later artillery and mortar
shells destroyed much of the equipment
and killed or wounded nineteen men.
Although the engineers persisted, their
first success came only after nightfall
and at a new site.
Upstream opposite Birkesdorf another
group of engineers, working under
seemingly constant fire, had completed
about 160 feet of a support bridge by
1300 when an enemy artillery piece, ap-
parently by indirect fire using long base
observation methods, got the range and
scored several direct hits. The men hur-
riedly laid out smoke pots, but through
the smoke the German. shells still came
in on target. Much of the bridge was
destroyed.
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OPERATION GRENADE 159
At three other sites artillery and often
rifle and machine gun fire prevented
engineers even from starting construc-
tion until after nightfall on D-day. All
countermeasures failed; counterbattery
fire, smoke, direct fire by tanks on ma-
chine gun positions, even gradual expan-
sion of the bridgehead—none of these
during 23 February checked the deadly
accuracy of the enemy fire. The first
bridge was not open to traffic until mid-
night. The 415th Infantry at the only
feasible ferry site managed to get three
57-mm. antitank guns across, but those
remained during D-day the only sup-
porting weapons east of the river.
Fortunately, the enemy’s 12th Volks
Grenadier Division of Krueger’s LVIII
Panzer Corps failed to follow through
with determined resistance once the in-
fantry got across. The 415th Infantry
took two villages en route to Oberzier
without difficulty and by midafternoon
had buttoned up along the Dueren-
J uelich railroad, the D-day objective
line. The 413th Infantry met only light
resistance at first in Birkesdorf and
Dueren, although enemy machine guns
and artillery were increasingly trouble-
some as the day wore on. The regiment
nevertheless cleared most of the north-
ern half of Dueren by dark. I n Birkes-
dorf the men captured an entire battal-
ion of the 27th Volks Grenadier Regi-
ment, complete with staff. “In compar-
ison with its earlier achievements,” the
Fifteenth Army commander was to note
later, “the 12th Volks Grenadier Divi-
sion had very much disappointed the
command during the initial defensive
battle.” 38
More precarious by far through the
38 MS # B–814 (Zangen).
day and into the night was the position
of the 8th Division upstream to the
south. Plagued by an open right flank
and daylong observation from foothills
of the Eifel highlands, the 8th had the
roughest D-day experience of all.
The leading 13th and 28th Infantry
Regiments were to cross in assault boats
and in double assault boats driven by
outboard motors. Cable ferries and foot-
bridges were to be put in as soon as pos-
sible for the reserve companies.
Fifty minutes before the scheduled H-
hour of 0330, only five minutes after the
artillery preparation began, the 28th In-
fantry’s 3d Battalion was to open the
assault with the mission of cutting en-
emy communications to the south and
southeast by taking Stockheim. No en-
emy fire opposed the 3d Battalion’s cross-
ing, but the swift river current caused
trouble enough. While about three-fifths
of the two leading companies got across,
the current swept the rest downstream.
Even many of those who made it lost
their weapons in swamped or capsized
boats. Fortunate it was that the crossing
took the Germans by surprise; twenty-
three rose up from riverside trenches
and surrendered. The prisoners’ rifles
served the men who had lost their own
weapons in good stead. Behind a rolling
barrage of white phosphorus fired by a
company of the 87th Chemical Battalion,
the assault companies continued to the
edge of woods overlooking Stockheim,
there to await the rest of the battalion
before seizing the village.
The 3d Battalion’s crossing was the
only real success the 8th Division could
report. Almost without exception the
units that began to cross at H-hour
found one difficulty piled upon another.
I n the cold, damp night air, men of
160 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
the 28th Infantry’s other assault battal-
ion, the 1st, could start none of the
motors on their six power boats. The
two lead companies then secured ten
assault boats each and tried to paddle
across. I n the first company out, five
boats made it, landing forty men on the
east bank. The other five boats
swamped. The next company lost all ten
boats, sunk or destroyed by enemy fire.
The remainder of the battalion pulled
back to reorganize and wait for a foot-
bridge.
The reserve 2d Battalion had scarcely
better luck. Company F in the lead was
supposed to cross in the boats used by
the 3d Battalion, but only half of those
returned from the first crossing and they
had to transport the 3d Battalion’s
follow-up company. Eventually the men
of Company F rounded up seventeen
boats and paddled themselves across. Al-
though most of the men reached the far
side, all their boats swamped or over-
turned. Some 140 men who assembled
on the east bank about 0630 had 30 rifles
among them. Hardly had they begun
moving southward toward their objec-
tive, a village close by the river, when
heavy shelling from upriver and small
arms fire from the village tumbled them
into abandoned German trenches,
where they remained under fire the rest
of the day. They stood alone, for the
rest of the 2d Battalion was stranded on
the west bank without boats and would
not get across until the next morning.
The footbridge for which the 1st Bat-
talion commander waited never got
built. A combination of enemy shelling
and the swift current compelled the en-
gineers to abandon the project. I n the
middle of the afternoon the battalion
began a shuttle system, ten men pad-
dling over, five bringing the boat back.
Two companies crossed in that manner.
The rest of the battalion began crossing
after dark by a cable ferry. By 2130 that
night the 2d Battalion was at last assem-
bled east of the river.
For the 13th Infantry, in the mean-
time, almost everything went wrong
from the first. The two leading battal-
ions were supposed to cross in fourteen
double assault boats powered by out-
board motors. Near a destroyed high-
way bridge at Dueren, eighteen men of
Company I actually landed in this fash-
ion on the east bank. At the same time,
Company K came under intense ma-
chine gun fire. One boat overturned.. On
all the others the motors failed, although
the men in one boat succeeded in pad-
dling across. Only thirty-six men of the
3d Battalion made it. Two platoons of
Company I arrived by cable ferry later
in the day. That was the sum total of
the 3d Battalion’s assault.
It was even worse for the 13th Infan-
try’s 2d Battalion farther south. Short
rounds of white phosphorus shells fired
by American artillery knocked out four
of company E’s boats before the crossing
began. Although ten boats were
launched, all swamped. The mishaps
reduced the three rifle platoons to fifty-
six men and thoroughly disorganized
the company.
Company F put twelve men over the
river under 1st Lt. E. W. Coleman, but
when motors on other boats failed and
the men found they could not handle as-
sault boats in the current, the rest of the
company stayed on the west bank. Lieu-
tenant Coleman’s dozen men fought
their way into a factory, capturing
twelve Germans in the process, but
other Germans promptly counterat-
OPERATI ON GRENADE 161
tacked and besieged the small force the
rest of the day. Coleman lost the pris-
oners and half his own men; he and six
others managed to hold out, even though
all were wounded.
As German fire became more and
more intense, the 2d Battalion aban-
doned all efforts to cross. Although di-
visional artillery and the 4.2-inch mor-
tars of the 87th Chemical Battalion
smoked all known enemy observation
points, neither the quantity nor accuracy
of German artillery or mortar fire ap-
preciably diminished.
The 3d Battalion continued trying to
cross throughout the day but without
much success. Ferries, which proved to
be the only feasible way of conquering
the current, were in operation only a
few minutes before artillery or mortar
shells severed the cables. By noon all
ferries had ceased to operate, and the
supporting company of the 12th Engi-
neer Combat Battalion was down to
eight men. Only with the coming of
darkness did the harassed engineers and
infantrymen gain any respite, but by
midnight the 13th Infantry still had only
four complete companies and elements
of two others east of the Roer. These
succeeded in pushing only about 400
yards beyond the river into the heaps of
rubble that represented the southern
half of Dueren.
Thus it was that the 28th Infantry’s
3d Battalion, which had reached the
woods line overlooking Stockheim, was
the only unit of the 8th Division that
came near accomplishing its D-day mis-
sion. That even this battalion, consid-
erably Landerstrength and inadequately
armed, had made any progress had to be
credited chiefly to the nature of German
resistance. Having all but smashed the
crossing with the aid of a rampaging
current and the fire of a supporting
volks artillery corps, neither the 12th
Volks Grenadier Division at Dueren nor
a weak 353d Infantry Division south of
the town made any move to counterat-
tack the disorganized bridgehead forces.
Through it all, attached corps engi-
neers struggling to construct five vehic-
ular bridges across the Roer had run
into the same problem of shelling and
current that beset those engineers who
tried to build footbridges or cable fer-
ries. At most sites the men worked in
vain even to get an anchor cable across.
At a site selected for an infantry support
bridge for the 13th Infantry, enemy
shells came in at an estimated rate of
125 an hour throughout D-day and into
the night. The following day as the rate
of fire increased to an estimated 200
rounds an hour, the engineers aban-
doned the site.
Although fire at that particular site
was exceptionally severe, it was heavy
enough at all bridge sites to deny any
successful construction during D-day.
The first bridge to be completed in the
8th Division’s sector was a Bailey bridge
put in on the masonry piers of the de-
stroyed main highway bridge into Due-
ren. That span was open to traffic on
the morning of 24 February. No others
opened until the 25th. I n constructing
nine bridges for the 8th and 104th Divi-
sions, engineers of the VII Corps in-
curred a total of 154 casualties, of which
8 were killed and 1 was missing.
The experience of the 8th Division
revealed strikingly the extent to which
the enemy depended on the flooded
Roer covered by preregistered artillery
and mortar fire to stop the attack. To
that kind of opposition the 8th Division
162
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
was particularly vulnerable. The divi-
sion’s crossings were made at points
where steep banks confined the river to
its normal course and where the river
emerged from a torrential descent
through a twisting gorge from the high-
land reservoirs. The current in conse-
quence was probably at least twice as
swift as in the lower and broader reaches
downstream from Dueren. The crossings
also took place under the shadow of high
ground from which the enemy could
command the entire river valley around
Dueren.
The First Day’s Results
Despite the 8th Division’s problems,
the great hammerblow of GRENADE
when viewed as a whole had effectively
crushed the enemy. With contingents of
six divisions on the east bank, there
could be no real doubt henceforth of
the outcome. The deep thrust of the
84th Division in the north as far as Baal
and the advance of the 30th Division in
the center into Hambach and Nieder-
zier, more than two miles east of the
Roer, made it particularly evident that
GRENADE had irreparably torn the en-
emy’s river line.
On 24 February, barring unforeseen
developments on the German side, all
the Ninth Army’s divisions were to ex-
pand their footholds on the east bank
and begin the wheel to the north, while
the VII Corps strengthened its admit-
tedly weak flank protection. The only
major change in plan was made late on
23 February upon the recommendation
of General Gillem, commander of the
XIII Corps, and General Anderson,
commander of the uncommitted XVI
Corps. Noting the quick success of the
84th Division, the two commanders
agreed that Anderson need not wait to
cross the Roer until Gillem had cleared
the east bank as far north as Erkelenz;
instead the XVI Corps might begin
crossing as early as the following day, as
soon as the 84th Division had taken the
next village downstream from
If the Roer crossing had proven ex-
pensive in terms of bridging equipment
and assault craft, it had been relatively
economical in what mattered most—
men’s lives. The entire Ninth Army lost
92 killed, 61 missing, and 913 wounded,
a total of just over a thousand. The VII
Corps incurred comparatively heavier
losses: 66 killed, 35 missing, and 280
wounded, a total of 381. 40
39 XIII Corps AAR, Feb 45.
40 12th AGp, G–1 Daily Sum, Master File, 1 J an-
28 Feb 45.
CHAPTER IX
Ninth Army to the Rhine
On the planning sheets, D plus 1 in
Operation GRENADE (24 February) was
a day for consolidating the bridgeheads
and adding strength beyond the Roer.
Despite some interference at bridges by
German artillery and ninety-seven futile
sorties by German aircraft, including
some by the new jets, the plans would
be accomplished with relative ease.
While antiaircraft gunners were taking
advantage of the rare opportunity to do
what they were trained for and were
knocking down eighteen of the planes,
bridgehead strength increased from six-
teen to thirty-eight battalions of infan-
try, and armored support reached all
divisions.
I n addition, D plus 1 was a day for
maneuver. The Ninth Army’s General
Simpson was anxious to get started on
the pivot to the north. This meant that
both the XIII and XI X Corps were to
thrust forward their right wings. I t
meant also that in the process each corps
would develop an open right flank.
Odds still were that the XIX Corps
on the south might have the most trou-
ble both because of the delays experi-
enced on D-day by the First Army’s VII
Corps and because of the invitation to
counterattack inherent in the existence
of the Hambach Forest. Yet the concern
proved chimerical; the Germans simply
had nothing to counterattack with.
Even though almost the entire 9th
Panzer Division arrived in the Fifteenth
Army’s sector during the day, the first
unit of the division would be able to
enter the line only after nightfall. Fur-
thermore, so powerful was the American
blow that General von Zangen would
have to use the division piecemeal in a
futile effort to hold the line rather than
to counterattack. I n any event, with only
twenty-nine tanks and sixteen assault
guns the 9th Panzer Division was some-
thing less than the formidable force its
name implied. 1
As events developed, the enemy mus-
tered almost no opposition as the 30th
Division drove through the northwest-
ern portion of the Hambach Forest.
While sharp local fights developed at two
farmhouses and a roadblock along the
highway leading from Niederzier to
Steinstrass at the northern edge of the
forest, they failed to delay the division
as a whole. At dark Steinstrass remained
in German hands, but the 30th Divi-
sion’s line ran along the north edge of
the forest, tying in to the west with the
29th Division astride the J uelich-
Cologne highway. 2
I n the 29th Division’s sector, only the
175th Infantry advanced during the day,
1 MS # B–812 (Zangen). Strength figures are
from Map, Luge Frankreich; OKW-WFSt Op(H)
We s t Pruef-Nr 1949, Stand: 14.2.45, 2. Luge.
2 The tactical story is based primarily on official
unit records and combat interviews.
164
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
GENERAL MCLAIN
and that a short distance to stay abreast
of the 30th while a new division was
entering the line to bolster the left wing
of the XIX Corps. Commitment of an-
other division was with an eye both to-
ward broadening the attack and toward
reducing the gap on the left as the XI I I
Corps swung north. The corps com-
mander, General McLain, introduced a
regiment of the 83d Division (General
Macon) on the extreme left of the
corps, attaching it temporarily to the
29th Division.
The only real difficulty with the pivot
maneuver arose within the XI I I Corps
sector. There the rapid D-day advance
of the 84th Division, plus the fact that
the left wing of the XIX Corps failed to
move, left the 102d Division’s right
flank open. Expecting continued attack
to the east, the Germans were in no po-
sition to halt the 102d’s northward move
head on, but they could fire directly
into the exposed flank.
That fire dealt a crippling blow to
two companies of the 701st Tank Bat-
talion supporting the northward ad-
vance of the 405th Infantry on the vil-
lage of Hottorf. Hardly had the tanks
started to move when antitank guns to
the east opened a deadly fire. They
knocked out four tanks from one com-
pany, eight from the other. Eight other
tanks foundered in German infantry
trenches. Two failed mechanically. Only
five joined the infantry on the objective.
I n the 84th Division, one regiment
remained in Baal, the northernmost
point reached on D-day, while the 335th
Infantry passed through to try to make
a swift conquest of the next village, Do-
veren, and prepare the way for the XVI
Corps to cross the Roer unopposed. Yet
as men of the 335th moved forward, they
ran into one tenacious nest of resistance
after another that the swift advance on
D-day had failed to clear. Not until mid-
afternoon, after tanks of the 771st Tank
Battalion arrived to help, did the drive
on Doveren pick up momentum, and
darkness had fallen before the village
was firmly in hand. Anderson’s XVI
Corps remained on the west bank.
For all the problems in taking Do-
veren, the hardest fighting on 24 Feb-
ruary again fell the lot of the First
Army’s VI I Corps. Not involved in the
pivot to the north, the VII Corps still
had its work cut out, since the 8th Divi-
sion had much to do before the division
could be said to be firmly established on
the east bank of the Roer.
The 13th Infantry with all battalions
in line spent 24 February fighting
through Dueren. Opposition was intense
NINTH ARMY TO THE RHINE
165
only at two nests of army barracks, but
bomb craters and rubble posed serious
obstacles. Not only were streets impass-
able for vehicles but commanders strug-
gled in vain to relate maps to the field of
ruins. The 28th Infantry in the mean-
time forced additional strength into
woods to the south but as night came
still was short of the objective of Stock-
heim, on which General Weaver in-
tended to anchor the division’s south
flank. Yet for all the limits of the day’s
advances and continued German shell-
ing of bridge sites, Weaver could
breathe more easily as the second day
came to an end—his reserve, the 121st
Infantry, crossed into Dueren late in the
day prepared to attack the next morn-
ing through the 13th Infantry,
From the point of view of the corps
commander, General Collins, the 8th
Division’s slow progress was of minor
concern so long as the bridgehead re-
mained solid. The job of the VII Corps
for the moment was flank protection for
the Ninth Army, and continued advance
by the 104th Division was what he
needed to assure that. Collins was par-
ticularly anxious that the 104th gain
Oberzier and two other villages facing
the Hambach Forest, both to take out
German guns that might harass the
flank of the neighboring 30th Division
and to open the way for the corps cav-
alry to clear the forest before the Ger-
mans could concentrate there for
counterattack. 3
3 General Collins normally issued oral orders to
his division commanders, then had them trans-
scribed as written letters of instruction. These are
valuable for revealing the reasoning behind the
orders. See VII Corps Ltrs of Instrs file, Feb 45.
Because the 413th Infantry was oc-
cupied mopping up the northern half
of Dueren, General Allen assigned all
three villages to the 415th Infantry, The
1st Battalion reached one village before
daylight but had to fight all day and
through the next night to clean out in-
fantry supported by four self-propelled
guns. Also making a predawn attack,
the 2d Battalion reeled back from Ober-
zier in the face of heavy German shell-
ing. To prepare the way for a second
attack an hour before noon, five bat-
talions of artillery pounded the village
for three hours. When the 2d Battalion
moved again, the men took Oberzier in
the face of only light small arms fire.
Because the approach to the third vil-
lage was exposed to fire from the other
two, the 3d Battalion delayed attacking
until after dark.
As night fell on the 24th, all condi-
tions for committing the cavalry were
yet to be met, nor was there room to
commit armor south of the Hambach
Forest. Anxious to get his mobile forces
into action, Collins ordered both the
8th and 104th Divisions to continue at-
tacking through the night.
Although German commanders had
feared an Allied pincers movement west
of the Rhine, during this second day
they still had not fully fathomed Ameri-
can intentions. While noting with trep-
idation the northward orientation of
the 84th Division, the Fifteenth Army
commander, General von Zangen, con-
tinued to hope that the Ninth Army
aimed its attack at the Rhine around
Cologne and that the northward thrust
was but a secondary effort to secure the
road center of Erkelenz. To believe oth-
erwise would be to admit that the entire
south wing of Army Group H was about
166
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
to be crushed in a vise between con-
vergent Canadian and American drives. 4
As the only hope for stopping the
84th Division, Zangen sent to Erkelenz
advance contingents of a woefully weak
infantry division (the 338th), which
had recently arrived from the Colmar
pocket far to the south. Against what
Zangen considered the main attack, the
eastward thrust, he could do nothing
but urge speed in piecemeal commit-
ment of the 9th and 11th Panzer Divi-
sions. A panzer grenadier regiment of
the 9th would go into the line during
the night of 24 February around Stein-
strass in an effort to prevent advance
beyond the Hambach Forest. Only the
Reconnaissance Battalion of the 11th
Panzer Division would be available for
commitment during the night and
would enter the line a few miles to the
north. No matter the harm piecemeal
commitments would do to any hope of
mounting a major counterattack, Zan-
gen deemed he had no choice. 5
The Third and Fourth Days
Sensing or at least guessing at German
confusion, American commanders on 25
February made every effort to capital-
ize on it and gain momentum. I n a con-
tinuing build-up beyond the Roer, at
least one combat command of armor ar-
rived during the day to reinforce each
corps. Lest the 84th Division be slowed
by clearing a crossing site for the XVI
4 MS # B–812 (Zangen).
5 lbid. See also MSS # C–020 (Schramm); # B–
080, 12th Volks Grenadier Division, 23 February
–March 1945 (Generalmajor Rudolf Langhaeuser,
CG); # B–152, 59th Infantry Division, 2 December
1944–28 February 1945 (Generalleutnant Walter
Poppe, CG) .
GENERAL ANDERSON
Corps, General Simpson told General
Anderson to test the feasibility of cross-
ing on his own. 6
The position of Anderson’s corps was
complicated by the existence of several
German bridgeheads on the west bank
of the Roer, one of which encompassed
the town of Hilfarth in a loop of the
river southwest of Doveren. If Anderson
was to glean advantage from the ad-
vance already made on the east bank
by the 84th Division, his troops would
have to cross at or near Hilfarth, and
that meant the town had to be cleared
first.
The scheme as General Anderson de-
veloped it was for the 79th Division
6 In addition to official sources, see History of
the XVI Corps (Washington: Infantry J ournal
Press, 1947). pp. 24–26.
NI NTH A RMY TO THE RHI NE 167
(Maj. Gen. Ira T. Wyche) to stage a
feint several miles downstream while
the 35th Division took Hilfarth and
actually crossed the river. To assist the
crossing, the division commander, Gen-
eral Baade, sent his 137th Infantry into
the bridgehead of the XI I I Corps to
take over the assignment of driving
north down the east bank. I n hope of
keeping the Germans from demolishing
a highway bridge they had left intact to
serve their garrison in Hilfarth, the
692d Field Artillery Battalion early on
the 25th began to place harassing fire
around the bridge.
A battalion of the 35th Division’s
134th Infantry hit Hilfarth before day-
light on 26 February. Despite a vicious
curtain of fire from automatic weapons,
the infantrymen forced their way into
the town, only to discover that the Ger-
mans had turned it into a lethal nest of
mines and booby traps. The bulk of the
battalion’s casualties came from those.
By midmorning, with the town in
hand, infantrymen provided covering
fire with their machine guns while en-
gineers erected two footbridges across
a narrow stretch of the Roer. As some
riflemen began to cross, others turned
their attention a few hundred yards
downstream. There either thirty-six
hours of harassing fire by the 692d Field
Artillery or faulty German demolitions
had saved the coveted highway bridge.
By noon tanks and other vehicles were
rolling across.
Giving the XVI Corps responsibility
for seizing its own foothold over the
Roer had in the meantime freed the
84th Division to concentrate on driving
some three miles beyond Baal to take
the road center of Erkelenz. Inserting a
combat command of the 5th Armored
Division (Maj. Gen. Lunsford E. Oli-
ver) on the right flank of the XI I I
Corps also released the 102d Division to
help. Under General Gillem’s plan, the
102d was to attack the town itself while
the 84th cut roads to the west.
Although first contingents of the ene-
my’s 338th Infantry Division had arrived
during the night of 25 February at Er-
kelenz in an effort to bolster the falter-
ing XII SS Corps, their efforts were so
weak as to be hardly apparent. On the
26th the 102d Division cut through al-
most without opposition to find Erke-
lenz practically deserted. After dodging
enemy shelling to gain one village, the
84th Division passed on to another to
find not only no opposition but, in the
village Gasthaus, beer on tap.
The resistance had been more chal-
lenging to the XI X Corps because of
General von Zangen’s hurried commit-
ment of portions of the 9th and 11th
Panzer Divisions, but the challenge was
short-lived. J ust before dark on the 25th
the 30th Division’s 117th Infantry broke
stubborn resistance by panzer grenadiers
at Steinstrass, while the 119th Infantry
at the same time bypassed the village to
drive almost two miles beyond. Moving
fast, shooting as they went, men of the
119th ran a gantlet of heavy flanking
fire that knocked out eight supporting
tanks, but in the process the men took
more than 200 prisoners, including all
of a Nebelwerfer company that never
got a chance to fire. At the end of the
day the division commander, General
Hobbs, could report to General Mc-
Lain: “It looks like things are beginning
to break a bit.”
7 30th Div G–3 J nl, 25–26 Feb 45.
168 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Hobbs was right. Things were begin-
ning to break.
Between them, the 29th and 30th Di-
visions were rolling up from the flank
the enemy’s second line of field fortifi-
cations and having surprisingly little
trouble doing it. The 29th Division on
25 February took five villages and
marked up an average advance of about
four miles, then the next day gained the
southern rim of the egg-shaped plateau
that extends from the Roer to the Erft.
During those two days, the attached
330th Infantry (83d Division) lost not
a man killed and had only fifty-nine
wounded. With some men riding at-
tached tanks, a regiment of the 30th Di-
vision on the 26th advanced more than
three miles. Another bound like that
would put even the outside unit of the
Ninth Army’s wheel onto the egg-shaped
plateau.
To the corps commander, General
McLain, it was clear that the way to
the Rhine was opening. Only antitank
fire remained effective; the German in-
fantry appeared confused and drained of
all enthusiasm for the fight.
Although the time for exploitation
seemed at hand, General McLain was re-
luctant to turn the drive over to his
armor lest the Germans had manned
their third and final prepared defense
line, which ran five miles to the north
through the village of Garzweiler,
roughly on an east-west line with Erke-
lenz. McLain told the 30th Division to
continue as far as Garzweiler, where-
upon the 2d Armored Division was to
take over.
Nor was all the success confined to
units of the Ninth Army. While resist-
ance still was stickier opposite the VII
Corps, General Collins’s divisions had
begun to break it by a simple process
of continuous, unremitting attack all
along the corps front for seventy-two
hours. “Contrary to their former custo-
mary manner of fighting,” the com-
mander of the 12th Volks Grenadier
Division would note, the Americans
“continued their fighting day and night.
As the enemy could always bring new
infantry into the conflict while on our
side always the same soldiers had to
continue fighting, the over-exertion of
our own infantry was extreme.” 8
The hardest fighting occurred on the
approaches and within the southern
reaches of the Hambach Forest along
both sides of an uncompleted Aachen-
Cologne autobahn. The explanation be-
came apparent with capture of prisoners
from the 9th Panzer Division’s 10th Pan-
zer Grenadier Regiment, but even that
once-elite regiment could give only
slight pause to a relentless American
push. To break up a counterattack at
one village, a battalion of the 415th In-
fantry got nine battalions of artillery to
fire for fifteen minutes. Making a night
attack along the axis of the Dueren-
Cologne railroad, a lone company of the
413th Infantry captured 200 men, all
that remained of the 1st Battalion, 10th
Panzer Grenadier Regiment. The bag
included the battalion commander.
At the same time, the 8th Division’s
13th Infantry was wiping out the last
resistance in Dueren with an attack pre-
ceded by a 10-minute artillery prepara-
tion in which four battalions fired more
than 1,500 rounds. I n an attack on a vil-
lage two miles to the east, two battalions
of the 121st Infantry fought all day on
25 February without success but per-
8 M S #B–080 (Lan ghaeuser).
NI NTH A RMY TO THE RHI NE 169
sisted through the night until at last the
Germans had enough and pulled out.
On the 25th, the 8th Division com-
mander, General Weaver, suffered the
fourth in a series of heart attacks and
was evacuated. He was succeeded by
Brig. Gen. Bryant E. Moore, former as-
sistant division commander of the 104th
Division.
While the two infantry divisions con-
tinued to drive through the night, Gen-
eral Collins ordered his cavalry and
armor across the Roer bridges. The ma-
neuver he planned for 26 February was
simple, flexible, and admirably designed
to exploit the full shock of armor.
With the 13th Infantry attached, the
3d Armored Division (General Rose)
split into six task forces, one built
around the 83d Reconnaissance Bat-
talion, the others each with a nucleus
of one battalion of tanks and one of
armored infantry, plus increments of
engineers, tank destroyers, and artillery.
With two task forces, Combat Com-
mand A on the right was to attack
astride the Dueren-Cologne highway to
gain the Erft River while CCB, also with
two task forces, was to take the road
center of Elsdorf, northeast of the Ham-
bach Forest a few miles short of the
Erft. One task force was to remain in
division reserve and the 83d Reconnais-
sance Battalion was to serve as a bridge
between the two combat commands.
The 24th Cavalry Squadron was to pro-
tect the left flank inside the Hambach
Forest .
I n striking northeastward, the Ameri-
can armor was turning away from the
enemy's LVI I I Panzer Corps into the
sector of the LXXXI Corps, where the
last of the 9th Panzer Division had ar-
rived to assume a passive defensive role.
Also present was a Kampfgruppe of the
3d Panzer Grenadier Division, rushed
northward from the Eifel. Yet neither
could do more than impose minor
wounds on the full-strength American
division. I n taking the first village
astride the Dueren-Cologne highway,
CCA lost eight tanks to concealed Ger-
man antitank guns, but that was the
worst that happened to any part of the
3d Armored Division all day. As night
came, contingents of CCB were drawn
up before Elsdorf, ready to hit the town
the next morning.
For the better part of 27 February
the 9th Panzer Division made a fight of
it in Elsdorf, but with fire support from
a company of tanks positioned in a
neighboring village an infantry bat-
talion broke into the town before noon
and began a systematic mop-up. With
the tank company was a T26 medium
tank armed with a 90-mm. gun, one of
the first twenty of this model (the Persh-
ing) sent to the European theater for
testing. The tank gave a good account of
itself. At a range of a thousand yards,
the Pershing hit and destroyed two Mark
I V tanks, drilling holes through the
thick side armor, and stopped a Mark
VI Tiger with a hit at the vulnerable
turret joint.
By midafternoon Elsdorf was suffi-
ciently cleared to enable General Rose
to commit his division reserve north-
eastward toward the Erft alongside the
83d Reconnaissance Battalion. As night
came the armor held a 3-mile stretch of
the Erft's west bank, and after dark in-
fantrymen waded across to establish two
small bridgeheads.
On 27 February the VII Corps thus
completed its role in Operation GRE-
NADE. I n two bounds the armor had cov-
170
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
PERSHING TANK T26 WI TH 90–MM. GUN
ered ten and a half miles from the
original Roer bridgehead line to the
Erft to seal the Ninth Army’s south
flank. Although General Collins would
be quick to exploit the crossing of the
Erft, the exploitation was logically not
part of GRENADE but belonged to an-
other operation General Bradley had
been designing to carry his 12th Army
Group to the Rhine. 9
Rundstedt’s Appeal
As these events had been occurring
9 See below, ch. X.
with such swiftness, German command-
ers who as late as 24 February could
hope that the Ninth Army’s crushing
drive was not designed to converge with
the Canadian thrust southeast from
Nijmegen were at last impelled to face
reality. Operation GRENADE at that point
clearly was the hammer aimed at crush-
ing the southern wing of Army Group
H against the anvil of Operation VERI-
TABLE. Success of the operations meant
encirclement or crushing defeat both for
Army Group H’s southern wing, the
First Parachute Army, and that part of
NI NTH ARMY TO THE RHI NE
171
the Fifteenth Army that was being
forced back to the north. 10
Admission of that hard fact came at
every level of command, from Fifteenth
Army to OB WEST. Although Field
Marshal Model at Army Group B ac-
knowledged the truth of a grim estimate
of the situation made by the Fifteenth
Army, he could do little to help, He
did promise commitment of the Panzer
Lehr Division, which OB WEST ac-
corded him, but the Panzer Lehr still
was severely bruised from its fight
against Operation VERITABLE and in any
event could make no appearance in
strength for several days. 11
The Commander in Chief West, Field
Marshal von Rundstedt, appealed on 25
February to Hitler for new directives
designed to prevent disintegration of the
entire Western Front. The situation was
bad everywhere, he reported, not only
in the north but in the south where
attacks by the U.S. Thi rd Army on ei-
ther side of the Moselle River (Bitburg
and Trier) worried Rundstedt most of
all. When Hitler made no immediate
response, Rundstedt on the 26th begged
permission to make at least a minor
withdrawal in the north, to pull back
the extreme left wing of the First Para-
chute Army out of a salient at the junc-
ture of the Roer and Maas Rivers near
Roermond. The withdrawal was de-
signed to ensure contact between the
parachute army and the Fifteenth
Army’s XII SS Corps as the latter fell
back before the American drive. Yet
even such a minor withdrawal Hitler
refused to sanction. 12
10 MS # B–812 (Zangen).
11 I bi d.
12 Magna E. Bauer, German Top Level Decisions
Hitler’s response on 27 February
sought to allay Rundstedt’s fears about
an attack along the Moselle but offered
no palliatives for any of the crises in
the west. By redeploying units already
present, Hitler directed, the endangered
southern wing of Army Group H was to
hold where it was. Withdrawal behind
the Rhine still was unthinkable.
Even as Hitler’s message arrived, the
crisis along the boundary between Army
Groups B and H was growing more seri-
ous. Again Rundstedt appealed for per-
mission to make at least the short with-
drawal from the Roermond salient. This
time he had the support of the Deputy
Chief of the Wehrmacht Operations
Staff, who personally briefed Hitler on
the crucial situation. Hitler at last
agreed-“with a heavy heart.” 13
Pursuit
The Germans had ample reason to be
concerned, for on 26 and 27 February
both GRENADE and VERITABLE entered
new, decisive stages. After a pause for
regrouping, the First Canadian Army on
the 26th renewed its drive. A British
corps on the right (part of the First
Canadian Army) aimed at Geldern, nine
miles away, where the British intended
to meet the Americans; a Canadian
corps on the left aimed at sweeping the
west bank of the Rhine with a 7-mile
jump to Xanten as the first step. It was
on the 26th also that the VII Corps be-
gan its successful 2-day sweep to the Erft
to seal the Ninth Army’s right flank.
and Plans, J anuary 1945 to End of War, prepared
in OCMH to complement this volume; MS # C–
020 (Schramm).
13 Quotation is from MS # C–020 (Schramm).
172 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
The next day, the 27th, the Ninth Army
commander, General Simpson, sanc-
tioned commitment of the first of his
armored divisions in a major shift to an
exploitation phase.
The question in Simpson’s mind, as
it had been in General McLain’s, was
whether infantry should continue to
lead the way in the zone of the XI X
Corps until the advance had passed the
German trench system that cut across
the front through Garzweiler. There
was room already to insert a new unit
between the 29th and 30th Divisions,
but should this be another infantry di-
vision or should it be armor? Gambling
that the enemy was no longer capable
of an organized defense on any line,
Simpson told General McLain to send
the armor through to the Rhine at
Neuss. As events developed, no real con-
cern was necessary, for before the armor
could get going on 28 February, the
30th Division took Garzweiler with no
particular trouble.
Elsewhere on the Ninth Army’s front
no one would even question the im-
mediate use of armor. A combat com-
mand of General Oliver’s 5th Armored
Division already had gone into action in
the XI I I Corps, originally as flank pro-
tection; General Gillem ordered the
rest of the division to attack through
the 102d Division on 28 February. The
84th Division in the meantime motor-
ized a task force of infantry and tanks.
While the 35th Division continued
northwestward to gain maneuver room
for the XVI Corps, General Anderson
alerted a combat command of the 8th
Armored Division (Brig. Gen. J ohn M.
Devine) to cross the Roer on 27 Febru-
ary and take up the fight to the north.
The weather remained favorable for
tanks. Although rain on 26 and 27 Feb-
ruary grounded tactical aircraft, it was
too light to spoil the footing.
On the last day of February and the
first day of March, events proved con-
clusively that the battlefield belonged
to armor. All along the front American
units recorded advances of from seven
to ten miles, and there was little the
Germans could do about it.
By the end of 28 February, the 2d
Armored Division (commanded now by
Brig. Gen. I. D. White) and an at-
tached regiment of the 83d Division
stood only seven miles from the Rhine.
The next day, 1 March, a single regi-
ment of the 29th Division took Muen-
chen-Gladbach almost without a fight.
On the same day, a motorized task force
of the 35th Division raced to Venlo on
the Maas, more than twenty-five miles
beyond the bridge at Hilfarth where
the division had crossed the Roer. The
task force was out of contact with the
enemy most of the way, probably be-
cause of the German withdrawal from
the Roermond salient.
It was all along the front a typical
pursuit operation, a return at last to
the halcyon days of August and early
September. For most of the troops most
of the time the tenseness of battle gave
way to dull fatigue. The setting no
longer looked like a battlefield. I n one
town electric lights were on, trolleys
running. Many a village bore no scar.
Returning to the fight after two days of
rain, tactical aircraft lent a kind of dis-
cordant note with their noisy attacks on
fleeing German columns. Almost all fir-
ing seemed to have an air of unreality.
Giving way to exhaustion, one lieu-
tenant fell asleep in a ditch, later to be
awakened by a German woman carry-
NI NTH A RMY TO THE RHI NE 173
ing a child and fleeing from some sense-
less machine gun chatter down the road.
Yet the battle had not ceased; it had
only been shattered. The bits here and
there, meaningless in the larger picture,
were grim and bloody for the troops
unlucky enough to run into them. The
84th Division, for example, after lung-
ing nine miles on 27 February, sud-
denly came upon a determined group
of Germans of the 8th Parachute Di-
vision at a town west of Muenchen-
Gladbach. With a skillfully organized
defense that belied the haste with which
the paratroopers had had to turn from
their British foes in the north to their
American enemies at their rear, the Ger-
mans brought war back to the 334th I n-
fantry in a daylong fight as bitter as any
in the campaign.
Company G bore the brunt of the ac-
tion. It finally required an advance over
open ground with marching fire, hand
grenades, and in the end bayonets to ex-
terminate the enemy. Of an estimated
50 paratroopers, only 2 surrendered.
Company G incurred 40 casualties out
of a force of about 125 riflemen who
took part.
The next day, 1 March, as the 84th
Division broke away again, General
Simpson shuffled his reserves to make
fresh troops available in each attacking
corps to maintain pressure. He trans-
ferred the 75th Division (commanded
now by Maj. Gen. Ray E. Porter),
which had been under operational con-
trol of the British, to the XVI Corps
and shifted the 79th Division (General
Wyche) from the XVI Corps to the
XIII Corps. His army reserve, the 95th
Division (Maj. Gen. Harry L. Twad-
dle), he attached to the XI X Corps.
About the only thing of note the Ger-
mans accomplished during those two
days was an exchange of General von
Manteuffel, commander of the Fifth
Panzer Army, for the Fifteenth Army
commander, General von Zangen, a step
in implementing the long-projected
transfer of zones between the two ar-
mies. Yet not for another six days would
the staffs complete the exchange. Gen-
eral von Manteuffel promptly ordered
the Panzer Lehr Division to counterat-
tack southeastward from Muenchen-
Gladbach with the aim of linking with
a northwestward strike by the 11th Pan-
zer Division, but the Panzer Lehr still
was assembling when the proposed base
of Muenchen-Gladbach fell. The loss
prompted Manteuffel to order the feeble
11th Panzer to desist. The XII SS Corps
continued to fall back to the north, out
of contact with the rest of the army,
while the LXXXI Corps and the 9th
and 11th Panzer Divisions (the two op-
erating at this point under Corps Bayer-
Zein) withdrew eastward behind the
Erft. 14
Efforts To Seize a Bridge
On the American side, commanders
began thinking seriously of the possi-
bility of taking intact a bridge across
the Rhine. Nobody really counted on
succeeding, but all deemed it worth a
try. Strong armored punches aimed at
the bridges would at least cut up the
enemy and possibly trap large numbers
even if the armor failed to take a bridge.
The Supreme Commander, General
Eisenhower, indicated to General Simp-
14 MSS # B-812 (Zangen); B-053 (Bayerlein); #
C-020 (Schramm); # B-202, Fifth Panzer Army,
1-17 April 1945 (Generalmajor F. von Mellenthin,
cofS).
174
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
son his intense interest in the Ninth
Army’s plans for taking a bridge. 15
On 1 March General McLain of the
XI X Corps inserted the 83d Division on
the right of the 2d Armored with the
mission of capturing Neuss and securing
four bridges: a railroad and two high-
way bridges at Neuss and a highway
bridge downstream at Oberkassel. At-
tacking with two regiments in early af-
ternoon, the 83d continued through the
night. One regiment cleared Neuss but
found all three bridges there destroyed.
The other regiment sent a task force
circling wide to the west, bent on taking
the bridge at Oberkassel by ruse.
Composed of parts of the 736th Tank
Battalion and the 643d Tank Destroyer
Battalion, with riflemen from the 330th
Infantry, the task force moved by night,
its tanks disguised to resemble German
tanks. Infantrymen walked beside and
behind the tanks to make themselves as
inconspicuous as possible while German-
speaking soldiers riding on the fronts of
the tanks were prepared to do any talk-
ing required.
At one point marching down one side
of the road while a German foot column
moved in the opposite direction down
the other, the column reached the out-
skirts of Oberkassel just at dawn. I n the
gathering light, a German soldier on a
bicycle in a passing column suddenly
shouted alarm. Their identity discov-
ered, men of the task force turned their
fire on the German column while the
Oberkassel town siren blew a warning.
Although the task force rushed toward
the bridge and some tanks even got on
the western end, the Germans demol-
ished it.
15 Conquer, p. 184
North of Neuss at Krefeld-Uerdinger,
a 1,640-foot bridge named for Adolf Hit-
ler still stood. The bridge lay in the
zone of the XI I I Corps, with the like-
liest candidate to rush it the 5th Ar-
mored Division. Another possibility had
arisen late on 28 February when the 2d
Armored Division of the XIX Corps
made sudden gains, though at dark the
2d Armored still was thirteen miles or
so from the bridge and separated from it
by what could prove a major obstacle,
the Nord Canal. Deciding on a wait-and-
see policy, General Simpson alerted the
XI I I Corps to be prepared to shift
northward on short notice to make room
for the 2d Armored Division should the
armor be able to take the Nord Canal
in stride.
On 1 March a task force of the 2d Ar-
mored’s Combat Command A found a
bridge intact over the canal and blasted
a way across. Combat Command B,
which had to put in its own bridges,
crossed later in the day. By nightfall
Combat Command A had reached the
outskirts of Krefeld, only three miles
from the Hitler bridge.
Around noon of 1 March, when the
Ninth Army’s G–3, Col. Armistead D.
Mead, had arrived at headquarters of the
XI X Corps to check on progress of the
attack, he learned that the 2d Armored
was rolling. It would be wrong, he be-
lieved, to stop the armor at the corps
boundary south of Uerdingen. Since
General Simpson was away from his
command post, Mead issued the neces-
sary orders in his commander’s name,
changing the boundary between the
XI I I and XI X Corps. The change
would enable the XI X Corps to con-
tinue along the west bank of the Rhine
beyond Uerdingen while forcing the
NI NTH ARMY TO THE RHI NE
175
XI I I Corps to wrench its attack north-
ward.
The commander of the XI I I Corps,
General Gillem, promptly protested.
The terrain near the bridge at Uer-
dingen, he said, was crisscrossed by ca-
nals and road and railway embankments,
no fit ground for armor. His own 84th
and 102d Infantry Divisions, he insisted,
already were well on the way to the
Rhine and should be allowed to con-
tinue.
Faced with this opposition, Mead and
General McLain of the XI X Corps went
forward to take a close look at the situa-
tion. They learned by their reconnais-
sance that heavy fighting was holding up
the 102d Division in the southern
fringes of Krefeld. To Mead, the re-
sistance looked to be stubborn; the best
way to break it was to take advantage of
the 2d Armored Division’s momentum.
Although General Gillem continued to
debate the issue, he finally gave in near
midnight, and the change in boundary
stood.
While these discussions were under-
way, General Simpson and Field Mar-
shal Montgomery were arranging an-
other shift in boundary. Because resist-
ance still was firm in front of the left
wing of the First Canadian Army, Simp-
son proposed to extend his own advance
to bring his troops up to the Rhine as
far north as a point opposite Wesel, only
a few miles short of the Canadian ob-
jective of Xanten. Although Montgom-
ery rejected the proposal—possibly be-
cause plans he already was formulating
for jumping the Rhine involved a Brit-
ish crossing at Wesel—he agreed to
shift the boundary as far north as Rhein-
berg, ten miles short of Xanten.
So late in the day were these changes
GENERAL GILLEM
in boundaries made that they had little
effect on the fighting for much of an-
other day. The XI I I Corps continued to
atack toward Uerdingen with the 5th
Armored Division under orders from
General Gillem to stop at the new corps
boundary only if the 2d Armored Divi-
sion had arrived. Still unaware of the
boundary change, the 84th Division in
the meantime was making its own plans.
The division commander, General Boll-
ing, ordered the 334th Infantry rein-
forced by the bulk of the 771st Tank
Battalion to bypass Krefeld, rush the
Hitler bridge, and, if possible, establish
a bridgehead over the Rhine. Neither
during the night of 1 March nor through
the next morning did any word of the
boundary change that would stifle this
plan reach the staff of the 334th Infan-
try.
176 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Men of the 5th Armored Division ad-
vanced on 2 March against no effective
opposition until, shortly past noon, they
met contingents of the 2d Armored just
south of Krefeld. There they halted to
await further orders. Backing down,
General Gillem told his armor to assem-
ble just inside the new corps boundary,
These forward units of the 2d Ar-
mored Division belonged to CCA, which
had managed only a short northward ad-
vance during the day. CCB was coming
up on the right, handicapped—as Gen-
eral Gillem had predicted—by ground
cut by numerous small streams. At the
closest point CCB still was two miles
short of the bridge at Uerdingen.
The 84th Division’s 334th Infantry
meanwhile launched its attack at 1400
from a point almost eight miles from
Krefeld, with the intention of veering
around the north side of the city to
reach the bridge. With attached tanks
rolling at top speed, the head of the
column got into the suburbs of Krefeld
in less than two hours after jump-off,
but then the leading tank took a wrong
turn heading into the city which the
column was supposed to bypass. The
tanks quickly became involved in a fire
fight with German antitank guns and
could disengage only after nightfall. The
attack left over from the old orders thus
stalled as new orders at last reached the
regiment, changing the objective from
Uerdingen to a point on the Rhine sev-
eral miles downstream.
The task of capturing Uerdingen and
the still-standing Hitler bridge passed
wholly to the XIX Corps. The troops to
accomplish it were from the 2d Armored
Division’s CCB with two attached bat-
talions of the 95th Division’s 379th In-
fantry.
GENERAL BLASKOWITZ
The Germans for their part were hard
put to muster a defense on the ap-
proaches to the bridge at Uerdingen.
The responsibility rested not with
Army Group B, since in driving rapidly
to north and northeast, all columns of
the U.S. Ninth Army now had passed
into the zone of Army Group H’s First
Parachute Army. For just over a month
Army Group H had been under General
Blaskowitz, former commander of Army
Group G, a result of command changes
late in J anuary when the Nazi party offi-
cial, Himmler, had left Army Group
Oberrhein in Alsace for new assign-
ment on the Eastern Front. While Gen-
eraloberst der Waffen-SS Paul Hausser
assumed command of Army Group G,
General Blaskowitz had moved to Army
NI NTH ARMY TO THE RHI NE 177
Group H to replace General Student,
an officer in whom Hitler had little con-
fidence . 16
General Blaskowitz and the com-
mander of the First Parachute Army,
General der Fallschirmtruppen Alfred
Schlemm, had been up against many of
the same problems faced by their col-
leagues to the south: virtually no re-
serves and adamant refusal by Hitler to
allow any withdrawal to the east bank
of the Rhine. I n an effort to salvage
something in the face of continued pres-
sure from the First Canadian Army and
a new threat by U.S. troops from the
rear, the German commanders had de-
cided to try to fashion a bridgehead
west of the Rhine extending from Uer-
dingen in the south to Geldern in the
west and beyond Xanten in the north.
To do the job at Uerdingen, General
Schlemm ordered there what was left of
the 2d Parachute Division, some three
or four understrength battalions. The
paratroopers arrived on 2 March, only a
step ahead of the American armor. 17
Unaware of the arrival of the para-
troopers, the 2d Armored Division made
plans to attack toward the bridge at
0200, 3 March. I n hope of keeping the
Germans from demolishing the bridge,
the 92d Armored Field Artillery Battal-
ion kept up a continuous harassing fire.
Beginning soon after nightfall on 2
March and using shells fixed with prox-
imity fuzes, the artillery fired for more
than fifteen hours.
The attack itself ran into trouble
16 Bauer, Army Group G, J anuary 1945.
17 MSS # B–084, First Parachute Army, 20
November 1944–21 March 1945 (General der Falls-
chirmtruppen Alfred Schlemm); # B–147, Army
Group H, 10 November 1944–10 March 1945
Oberst Rolf Geyer, Opns Officer, AGp H).
from the start. Four tanks knocked out
quickly at the head of the column
blocked passage of the others. The in-
fantry went on alone to try to clear a
new route. When the tanks in early
afternoon again attacked, they reached
the vicinity of the bridge from the south
but ground to a halt under heavy mor-
tar fire punctuated now and then by
the sharper sting of an antitank gun or
Panzerfaust .
The two attached battalions of the
379th Infantry meanwhile fought their
way to the highway connecting Krefeld
and Uerdingen and tried to turn east-
ward to the bridge. The paratroopers
fought back stubbornly. Tantalizingly
close to the bridge, neither infantry nor
tanks could push the few remaining
yards. A 13-foot hole in the road at the
west end of the bridge denied passage
€or the tanks, and without their help
the infantry was unable to pierce a thick
curtain of small arms fire.
After dark a six-man engineer patrol
led by Capt. George L. Youngblood
slipped past the defenders, gained the
bridge, and crossed it, cutting all visible
demolition wires in the process. The
patrol went all the way to the east bank
before turning back. Yet the engineers
either missed the critical wires or the
enemy put in others during the night,
for at 0700 the next morning, before a
new attack could gain the bridge, the
Germans blew the center and west
spans. 18
Fighting to clear Uerdingen contin-
ued throughout 4 March and into the
morning of the 5th. At the same time
18 General Schlemm says: “At Uerdingen the
demolition wires were shot out by artillery fire.
Their replacement took hours.” MS # B–084
(Schlernm).
178 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
the corps commander, General McLain,
ordered the 95th Division to drive for
road and rail bridges at Rheinhausen,
not quite six miles downstream from
the Adolf Hitler bridge, with the armor
attacking northward on the 95th’s left.
Resistance proved to be light. The rea-
son seemed apparent when during the
morning of 5 March pilots of artillery
observation planes reported both bridges
at Rheinhausen already down. By mid-
afternoon the XI X Corps had completed
its role in reaching the Rhine but had
failed to get a bridge.
There was another reason for the light
resistance. I n breaking through at Uer-
dingen, the XIX Corps had compro-
mised the bridgehead line that General
Schlemm, the First Parachute Army
commander, had been trying to hold.
With the approval of Blaskowitz at Army
Group H, Schlemm authorized with-
drawal to a second and smaller bridge-
head line extending from the conflu-
ence of the Ruhr River with the Rhine
at Duisburg in the south to the vicinity
of Xanten in the north. This was a line
of no retreat designated by Hitler per-
sonally to enable continued supply of
coal by barge to the German Navy along
major canals leading to the North Sea
ports.
Yet this line also quickly proved too
ambitious. As the XI X Corps on 5
March finished clearing its share of the
Rhine’s west bank, the 5th Armored Di-
vision of the XI I I Corps dashed into
Orsoy, on the Rhine opposite one of the
canals the Germans needed for their
coal barges. With tanks and half-tracks
in high gear and firing as they went,
CCR swiftly covered the last two miles
into Orsoy, cutting through German in-
fantry and overrunning artillery pieces
before they could fire. The 84th Division
meanwhile cleared Moers and Homberg
but found road and rail bridges leading
across the Rhine into Duisburg already
destroyed.
Operation GRENADE as originally con-
ceived was over; but if the Ninth Army’s
General Simpson had his way, GRENADE
would be extended to include a bridge-
head over the Rhine and a drive to the
northeastern corner of the Ruhr indus-
trial region. Since 1 March Simpson’s
staff had been considering this strata-
gem, based in the main on the theory
of seizing a bridge intact but, failing
that, on a quick surprise crossing. 19
General Simpson settled on a plan to
cross the Rhine between Duesseldorf
and Uerdingen, then to turn north to
clear the east bank for further crossings
and to gain relatively open country
along the northern fringe of the Ruhr.
It was a stratagem that hardly could
have failed, for Hitler’s refusal to agree
to timely and orderly withdrawal behind
the Rhine had left his field commanders
little with which to defend the historic
moat and in early March totally unpre-
pared to counter a crossing.
Yet Simpson’s superior, Field Marshal
Montgomery, said no. To a bitter Ninth
Army staff, his refusal rested, rightly or
wrongly, on the effect an impromptu
American crossing might have on the
Field Marshal’s own plans for staging a
grand set-piece assault to cross the Rhine
on a broad front. 20
19 Conquer, pp. 189–90.
20 Conquer, p. 190. Speaking with some authority
on the British viewpoint, Chester Wilmot in The
Struggle for Europe (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1952). page 677, wrote that Montgomery refused
because a crossing near Duesseldorf would have
involved the Ninth Army in the “industrial
wilderness” of the Ruhr. In none of his published
NI NTH ARMY TO THE RHI NE
179
The Wesel Pocket
Operation GRENADE as originally con-
ceived was over and would gain no new
lease on life beyond the Rhine. Yet it
would be extended northward along the
west bank, for the Ninth Army still
would have a hand in reducing those
Germans remaining west of the river.
Swinging northeastward after an initial
thrust northward from the Roer cross-
ing site, General Anderson’s XVI Corps
would be thrown into a tough after-fight
against remnants of the First Parachute
Army. The resistance would be stub-
born, for never would Hitler actually
authorize withdrawal.
From 28 February through 3 March
the XVI Corps had been slicing through
relatively undefended country. I n driv-
ing first to Venlo and thence north-
eastward in the general direction of
Rheinberg, midway between Wesel and
Duisburg, a motorized task force of the
35th Division and a lone combat com-
mand of the 8th Armored Division had
led the way, each on a narrow front. For
much of the time the armor had to stick
to a single road, where its striking power
at the head was seldom more than a pla-
toon of tanks and a company of in-
fantry; but neither this nor any other
handicap really mattered.
Indications that the road march might
be nearing an end emerged on 3 March.
The 35th Division’s Task Force Byrne
(a reinforced 320th Infantry) reached
works did Montgomery himself comment. German
commanders almost to a man believed a surprise
crossing would have met little resistance, a view
reinforced by events in succeeding days elsewhere
along the Rhine. See i n particular MSS #B–084
(Schlemm) ; # B–147 (Geyer) ; #A–965 (General-
major Karl Wagener) .
Sevelen, five miles southeast of Geldern,
but there had a stiff fight to take the
town. (Map VII) A battalion of the
134th Infantry made contact with the 1st
British Corps at Geldern, but resistance
there too was determined. Although the
8th Armored Division still had met no
real opposition, the armor was about to
he pinched out by the change in bound-
ary that sent the neighboring XI I I
Corps northward. CCB would be at-
tached the next day to the 35th Divi-
sion, while CCR on the extreme right
had to be recalled to make room for
units of the XIII Corps.
Contact between the forces of Opera-
tions VERITABLE and GRENADE on 3
March at Geldern created a continuous
Allied perimeter around those Germans
remaining west of the Rhine. Units of
the 1st British Corps had reached posi-
tions generally on a north-south line
between the Xanten Forest, west of
Xanten, and Geldern, while the Cana-
dians still were fighting to wrest a ridge-
line within the Xanten Forest from
German paratroopers.
The perimeter for the moment cor-
responded roughly to the outer bridge-
head line that General Schlemm of the
First Parachute Army was trying to
establish, but not for long. The ad-
vances at Geldern and Sevelen meant
that in the center as in the south the
Germans would have to fall back to the
inner bridgehead line, which in this sec-
tor ran about six miles east of Geldern
along the western edge of the Boenning-
hardt Forest. The southern edge of the
bridgehead would be anchored on
Orsoy.
From the vicinity of Xanten to Orsoy,
the German bridgehead was some six-
teen miles wide. It encompassed the
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
only high ground in this generally flat
portion of the Rhineland: a boomerang-
shaped ridge in the north covered by the
Xanten Forest, the wooded Boenning-
hardt Ridge on a northwest-southeast
axis that bisected the Geldern-Wesel
highway, and a series of isolated hills
south of the Boenninghardt Ridge.
Within the bridgehead General
Schlemm still had more than 50,000
men, representing contingents of almost
every division that had put up such a
determined stand against Operation
VERITABLE, including four parachute
divisions, the Panzer Lehr and 116th
Panzer Divisions, and a panzer grena-
dier division. 21 Only in the north oppo-
site the Canadians was the bridgehead
line solidly organized, for there the Ger-
mans had made a grudging withdrawal
back to a natural line of defense. Else-
where hasty withdrawal had left few
German units with any real integrity.
Within the bridgehead, two bridges
still spanned the Rhine, a road bridge
and a rail bridge, both leading to Wesel,
the city on the east bank that would
lend its name to the pocket of German
troops. Those bridges obviously would
be a key Allied objective, both because
they stood almost exactly in the middle
of the bridgehead and because they held
out promise for crossing the Rhine with
dry feet.
Because of the sparse opposition the
Americans had been meeting, Allied
commanders believed the best chance of
getting the Wesel bridges rested with
the XVI Corps. The assignment went to
the 35th Division and its attached com-
bat command, which were to drive
northeastward to Rheinberg, thence
31 MS # B–084 (Schlemm).
northward to take the bridges. Although
the bridges lay outside the American
boundary, the commanders informally
eased boundary restrictions.
General Baade's 35th Division at-
tacked on 4 March with two regiments
abreast. On the left two battalions of
the 320th Infantry came under intense
fire from small arms, mortars, and artil-
lery as they approached the Hohe Busch,
a small forest not quite half the distance
to Rheinberg astride the Sevelen-
Rheinberg highway. Fire from neither
artillery nor tank destroyers could neu-
tralize the German positions. Although
a platoon of rifllemen got into a village
just west of the wood, the men with-
drew when the enemy began closing
around them. Under the impression that
the platoon held the village, five me-
dium and two light tanks of the 784th
Tank Battalion moved in. With Panzer-
fausts the Germans knocked out one of
the mediums and both the lights, and
only the timely arrival of a reserve rifle
company spared the others. Even after
the infantry cleared the village, the Ger-
mans after dark came back, besieging
one American platoon in a hotel with
hand grenades thrown through the win-
dows.
It was a touch of the old war again,
of the days before anyone talked of Ger-
man collapse, not only here but to the
south where two battalions of the 137th
Infantry on the 35th Division's right
wing also ran into trouble.
Attacking from a point southeast of
Sevelen, a leading company of one bat-
talion encountered heavy fire at the base
of one of the isolated hills that afforded
a logical extension of any defensive line
based to the north on the Boenning-
hardt Ridge and the Hohe Busch. Two
NI NTH ARMY TO THE RHI NE 181
platoons found some shelter in ditches
and behind hedges while the other two
ducked into houses. Because the com-
pany’s artillery observer had lost his
radio, the men had no artillery support.
As two German tanks rolled down the
road, one blast from their guns killed
the company commander, Capt. Daniel
Filburn, and a platoon leader, 2d Lt.
J ohn H. Hartment. With two key lead-
ers lost and the tanks methodically
blasting the houses and ditches in which
the men sought shelter, all control van-
ished. The men fled. Reorganized before
noon, they went back with tank de-
stroyer support to hold the position, but
not until the next day did this battalion
mount another attack. 22
Another battalion of the 137th Infan-
try also had a day of hard fighting, but
with consistent tank and artillery sup-
port achieved a noteworthy success.
When a patrol came under heavy fire
from one of the isolated hills, the battal-
ion commander, Maj. Harry F. Parker,
borrowed six half-tracks and several
light tanks from the 8th Armored Divi-
sion’s 88th Reconnaissance Battalion,
mounted Company G on them, and
sent them racing into houses at the foot
of the hill. While another company pro-
vided supporting fire from the edge of
a nearby wood, Company G continued
northward to take not only the offend-
ing hill but another a few hundred
yards to the north. The latter yielded
200 prisoners and prompted Germans
on a remaining hill to the north to pull
out during the night.
Despite the sudden flare-up of fighting
on 4 March, General Baade continued
22 Extensive combat interviews are available on
these actions of the 35th Division.
to anticipate a speedy breakthrough to
the Rhine and possibly even across the
river by way of one of the bridges at
Wesel. To gain a leg on the thrust to
the bridges, he ordered Task Force
Byrne (the 320th Infantry reinforced)
to turn immediately northward to seize
a key crossroads on the Geldern-Wesel
highway behind the Boenninghardt
Ridge. The attached CCB, 8th Armored
Division, was to assume the assignment
of taking Rheinberg, whereupon the ar-
mor and the 137th Infantry together
were to turn north toward the bridges.
Task Force Byrne started moving
early on 5 March, the men fully expect-
ing to make a rapid advance by bounds.
Yet even though the Germans had evac-
uated most of the Hohe Busch during
the night, rear guards held out through
the morning. As the 1st Battalion at last
passed to the north of the forest, the
Germans cut off the leading platoon in
a village at the base of the Boenning-
hardt Ridge. It took the rest of the day
to rescue the platoon and clear the
enemy from scattered houses nearby. An-
other battalion that had in the mean-
time attempted to advance along the
main highway toward Rheinberg before
turning north met intense fire from
automatic weapons and antitank guns.
The leading company lost two support-
ing tanks and its commander.
Even heavier fighting erupted on the
approaches to Rheinberg where, under
the plan of CCB’s commander, Col. Ed-
ward A. Kimball, a task force composed
largely of infantry was to take the town
while another heavy in armor was to be
ready to push on to the bridges at
Wesel. The plan was based on a premise
of negligible resistance; said the com-
mander of the task force of armor, Maj.
182 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
J ohn H. Van Houten: “We thought it
was to be a road march.” 23
The operation started out pretty
much that way as the infantry force un-
der Lt. Col. Morgan G. Roseborough
marched beyond the isolated hills south
of the Hohe Busch and entered the
town of Lintfort. The town was secured
by 1100, but among the buildings Task
Force Roseborough took a wrong turn-
ing to end up north instead of east
of the town. As the column advanced
along a road leading to the main high-
way into Rheinberg, German antitank
guns opened fire, knocking out a half-
track and a medium tank. At the same
time a rash of small arms fire erupted
from nearby houses. The infantry dis-
mounted, deployed, and gave battle.
Anxious to avoid delay in seizing
Rheinberg, the CCB commander, Colo-
nel Kimball, called forward Task Force
Van Houten. Major Van Houten and
his armor, he ordered, were to drive
alone on Rheinberg. The infantry of
Task Force Roseborough was to follow
later in half-tracks.
Major Van Houten split his task force
into three columns. One was to bypass
the opposition holding up Task Force
Roseborough and drive up the main
highway into Rheinberg, a second to
move along secondary roads to join the
first on the main highway a thousand
yards out of Rheinberg, and a third to
drive east and come into Rheinberg by
way of another main highway from the
south.
All three columns quickly ran into
trouble. Composed mainly of light
tanks, the left column on the Rheinberg
highway soon lost four tanks to antitank
23 Combat interview with Van Houten.
guns, a Panzerfaust, and a mine, The
center column never reached the high-
way as concealed German antitank guns
knocked out twelve of fourteen medium
tanks. The CCB commander himself,
Colonel Kimball, got trapped in a house
by mortar and machine gun fire and
escaped only after darkness came. The
third column meanwhile gained the
highway leading into Rheinberg from
the south but there encountered a
swarm of German infantry and lost two
tanks to Panzerfausts.
Having no infantry support, the com-
mander of this column, Capt. David B.
Kelly, radioed for help; but before in-
fantry could arrive, he decided to risk a
quick rush against Rheinberg with tanks
alone. While the bulk of his company
provided covering fire, three tanks raced
forward. German antitank fire got all
three of them.
Kelly himself then led a dash by his
remaining tanks, but all except Kelly’s
own tank lagged. Kelly raced into
Rheinberg alone, circled the town
square, machine-gunned a German who
was about to fire a Panzerfaust, nar-
rowly escaped hits from German anti-
tank guns five times, then raced back
out of the town. On the way back Ger-
man gunners hit his tank twice but
failed to stop it.
Returning to his companions south
of the town, Kelly found infantry sup-
port at last arriving: two companies of
Task Force Roseborough that finally
had eliminated the enemy north of Lint-
fort. I n the hour of daylight remaining,
the infantry and Kelly’s seven remaining
tanks mounted a new attack. Kelly him-
self led it on foot.
Advancing together, infantry and
tanks took a hundred prisoners and
NI NTH ARMY TO THE RHI NE 183
knocked out three 88’s, five 20-mm.
antiaircraft guns, and four machine
guns. Reaching the southern fringe of
Rheinberg as darkness fell, they waited
for the 35th Division’s 137th Infantry
to come up during the night and secure
the rest of the town.
The fight for Rheinberg had all but
annihilated CCB’s armor; of 54 tanks,
39 were lost. For both the 36th Tank Bat-
talion and the 49th Armored Infantry,
it had been the first real fight, strikingly
sharp action when compared with the
skirmishing that had marked the com-
bat command’s brief previous experience
in battle. Although the men had dis-
played considerable valor, they had paid
dearly with a loss of 92 killed, 31 miss-
ing, 220 wounded. I n official tones, the
8th Armored Division’s staff summarized
what had gone wrong: “The employ-
ment of the tank elements could have
been improved through the provision of
closer infantry support, and undoubted-
ly such support would have materially
decreased the tank losses of the Combat
Command.” 24
A daylong spectator at the events
around Orsoy was the First Parachute
Army commander, General Schlemm. 25
Fully expecting the Americans to send
a column of tanks streaking northward
immediately to cut off his remaining
troops from the Wesel bridges, Schlemm
nevertheless put into effect plans for a
new defensive line. Ordering two of his
three corps headquarters to retire east of
the Rhine, he placed the remaining
bridgehead under one corps. The
bridgehead still encompassed the town
of Xanten and most of the Boenning-
hardt Ridge.
24 8th Armored Div AAR, Mar 45.
25 MS # B–084 (Schlemm).
While the Canadians plugged away at
die-hard opposition in Xanten, General
Anderson’s XVI Corps headed north
with two task forces, Task Force Byrne
still on the left, Task Force Murray
(the 137th Infantry with what remained
of the 8th Armored Division’s CCB) on
the right. Both task forces soon discov-
ered that the hard fighting for Rhein-
berg on 5 March had been a harbinger
of what was to come. Although a British
division on the left of Task Force Byrne
provided help, the two task forces could
do no more through the next three days
than inch forward.
Then as suddenly as the determined
resistance had formed, it disintegrated.
During the night of 9 March the Ger-
mans blew both the highway and rail-
way bridges at Wesel, leaving only a few
rear guards and stragglers on the west
bank, Passing through Task Force Mur-
ray, the 134th Infantry the next morn-
ing swept to the demolished highway
bridge almost unimpeded.
Th e Beginning of the End
I n just over two weeks the Ninth
Army had driven approximately 53
miles, from the Roer at J uelich to the
Rhine at Wesel, and had cleared some
34 miles of the west bank of the Rhine
from Duesseldorf to Wesel. I n the proc-
ess the army had captured about 30,000
Germans and killed an estimated 6,000
more while absorbing less than 7,300
casualties. 26 I n the companion drive, the
First Canadian Army had driven ap-
proximately 40 miles from the Dutch-
German border near Nijmegen to
26 Conquer, p. 198.
184 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Wl. The casualties in VERITABLE were
15,600, prisoners, 22,200. 27
The First Canadian Army’s task had
been the more difficult of the two, for
the fortune of the delay imposed on
Operation GRENADE by the flooded Roer
River had shoved the bulk of German
strength to the north. The First Para-
chute Army clearly had been superior
to the Fifteenth Army. I n addition,
flooded ground over the first few miles
of the Canadians’ route of attack had
imposed serious difficulties.
Although Field Marshal Montgomery
had not intended it so, the two opera-
tions had developed in a pattern already
made familiar in Sicily and again in
Normandy, where Montgomery’s troops
attracted German reserves while Ameri-
can forces achieved a breakthrough and
rapid exploitation. I n Normandy more
favorable terrain had lured the Germans
to Montgomery’s front; here it was be-
cause the Canadian attack had started
first. As in Normandy, the Americans
with their immense transportation re-
sources were admirably suited for the
breakthrough role.
For all the speed of execution, Opera-
tion GRENADE was complex, involving
the crossing of a flooded, defended river,
followed by two major changes in direc-
tion of attack and a minor adjustment
at the end, A trace along the middle of
the Ninth Army’s course would resem-
ble a giant S.
The operation also had introduced
another complication that all Allied ar-
mies now would experience as they
thrust deep into the interior of Ger-
27 Stacey, The Victory Campaign, p. 522.
many. This was the presence of millions
of noncombatants-native civilians, im-
pressed workers from other countries,
and liberated prisoners of war.
I n some measure the Allies had ex-
perienced the problem before in France,
Belgium, and the Netherlands, but the
populace in those countries had been
friendly. I n earlier fighting just within
the German frontier, many of the ci-
vilians had fled the battle zone; but now,
as the Allies thrust deeper, there was
nowhere for them to go. Literally masses
of humanity wandered about, cluttering
roads, slowing traffic, sometimes clog-
ging prisoner-of-war channels. Destroyed
homes, damaged water, sanitary and
electrical facilities, and a complete
breakdown of civilian transportation
added to the problem. To establish some
semblance of order out of the chaos was
a mammoth asignment that by 15 March
already was occupying more than forty
Military Government detachments in
the Ninth Army’s zone. 28
Meanwhile, the great build-up for
crossing the Rhine began, underscoring
the fact that Operations GRENADE and
VERITABLE marked the beginning of the
end. Not only had these operations put
the Ninth Army, the Canadians, and the
British into position to cross the Rhine
but they had unleashed a flood of offen-
sive operations elsewhere, designed to
carry all Allied armies to the river. In-
deed, a contingent of one American
army already had stolen a march on all
others and jumped the big obstacle with-
out pause.
28 An instructive essay on this subject may be
found in Conquer, pp. 195–97,
CHAPTER X
Operation LUMBERJ ACK
Although the American attacks in the
Eifel and the Saar-Moselle triangle were
unpopular with Field Marshal Mont-
gomery, they were in reality of assistance
to him, for they did, in fact, limit the
units the Germans could disengage to
send north. They also put General Brad-
ley’s forces into better positions for gain-
ing the Rhine whenever the signal came
and denied hard-pressed German units
the respite they desperately needed.
I n making plans for going beyond
those limited objective attacks, General
Bradley had to consider not only the re-
sponsibility for protecting the right flank
of the Ninth Army as far as the Erft in
Operation GRENADE but also an addi-
tional task that the Supreme Com-
mander, General Eisenhower, assigned
on 20 February. Before Bradley could
turn full attention to gaining the west
bank of the Rhine, he had to extend his
protection of the Ninth Army’s right
flank by clearing a triangle of land be-
tween the Erft and the Rhine extending
northward from Cologne to the conflu-
ence of the two rivers near Duessel-
dorf. 1
Bradley logically gave the assignment
to the First Army’s General Hodges for
execution by Collins’s VII Corps. Once
the job was completed, the VII Corps
was to take Cologne, then head south
1 Ltr. Eisenhower to Bradley, 20 Feb 45, 12th
AGp Military Objectives, 371.2, vol. VI.
along the Rhine. As Collins turned
south, other contingents of the First
Army were to launch a narrow thrust
from the vicinity of the road center of
Euskirchen southeast to the Ahr River,
there to converge with a thrust by the
Third Army through the Eifel and cre-
ate a pocket of trapped Germans in the
northern reaches of the Eifel.
Bradley’s plan went by the code name,
LUMBERJ ACK. 2
Despite having relinquished units to
flesh out the Ninth Army, the 12th Army
Group still was a powerful force. I n the
First Army, General Hodges had twelve
divisions (three of them armored), plus
another at reduced strength (the 106th)
and two cavalry groups. I n the Third
Army, General Patton had ten divisions
(including three armored) and two
cavalry groups. While nondivisional ar-
tillery was in no such strength as that
which had helped the Ninth Army over
the Roer, it was impressive nevertheless.
Each corps in the First Army, for exam-
ple, retained its usual attachments of
four battalions of 155-mm. howitzers,
two battalions of 155-mm. guns, and a
battalion each of 4.5-inch guns and 8-
inch howitzers. I n deference to the role
GENADE, the VII Corps had two ad-
ditional battalions-one light, one me-
dium. The 32d Field Artillery Brigade
Opeation LUMBERJ ACK, Outline Plan, 23 Feb
45, Hq 12th AGp.
186 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
with two 8-inch gun and two 240-mm.
howitzer battalions, operating under the
First Army’s control, assumed positions
favoring the north wing. 3
The breakdown of roads under the
February thaw was of some concern to
all but prompted few special measures
except in the First Army where the two
assault divisions of the VII Corps were
authorized to accumulate five days’ sup-
ply of ammunition before jumping the
Roer. Both armies were relatively close
to major railheads—the Third Army to
Luxembourg City and Thionville, the
First Army to Liège—so that rail trans-
port could handle much of the burden
except for the last few miles to the front.
Nor was either army so heavily engaged
throughout February but that some sup-
plies could be stockpiled. The First
Army, for example, built up its Class
III (gasoline) reserves from 1.8 days of
supply to 6 days. Nevertheless, with the
lesson of the 4th Division’s supply prob-
lems near Pruem in mind, General
Bradley directed both armies to instruct
division staffs in how to obtain emer-
gency supply by air. He directed also
prepackaging of vital supplies at various
airfields for prompt loading if needed. 4
Intelligence officers estimated approx-
imately 40,000 Germans in front of the
First Army and some 45,000 facing the
Third Army. If the G–2’s erred at all,
they erred on the side of caution; as
noted during the first fortnight in Feb-
ruary in the pessimistic report of Field
Marshal von Rundstedt, the Germans
in all of Army Group B amounted to the
3 FUSA Rpt of Opns, 23 Feb–8 May 45, p. 5;
TUSA AAR, Feb–Mar 45.
4 I bi d.
equivalent of only six and a half full
divisions. 5
During late February, no major
changes occurred in the German order
of battle opposite the First and Third
Armies except those occasioned by Op-
eration GRENADE and by the Third Ar-
my’s attacks in the Eifel and the Saar-
Moselle triangle. Hit by the U.S. VII
Corps in GRENADE, the southernmost
corps of Zangen’s Fifteenth Army,
Krueger’s LVIII Panzer Corps (still mi-
nus the armor the corps name implied),
had been pushed back, in some places
behind the Erft River and Canal system.
I n continuing northeast after crossing
the Erft, the VII Corps would strike the
remnants of Koechling’s LXXXI Corps
and of Corps Bayerlein, the latter com-
posed of what was left of the 9th and
11th Panzer Divisions after their piece-
meal and futile commitment against
GRENADE. From a boundary with the
Fifteenth Army immediately south of
Dueren, Manteuffel‘s Fifth Panzer Army
stood with three corps behind the Roer
River and its upper tributaries while
awaiting the shift in zones with the
Fifteenth Army that was to come around
1 March beginning with exchange of
the two army commanders, Manteuffel
and Zangen. Commanded at this point
by General Felber, the Seventh Army
stood behind the Pruem and Kyll Riv-
ers, impotently awaiting continued
strikes by the American Third Army.
I n reaching the Erft River late on 27
February, General Collins’s VII Corps
had fulfilled its mission in Operation
GRENADE. Yet because of the added as-
signment of guarding the Ninth Army’s
flank all the way to the Rhine, the corps
5 For details, see above, ch. VIII.
OPERATI ON LUMBERJ ACK 187
would make no pause at the Erft except
that necessary to expand the bridgeheads
established on the 27th and to put in
bridges. By the end of the first day of
March, the corps was beyond the Erft
complex astride the main highways lead-
ing from J uelich and Dueren to Co-
logne. (Map IX) Despite frantic efforts
by German planes, usually operating
singly, six class 40 bridges were in place
across the Erft.
Resistance was at most places light,
mainly mortar fire and shells from rov-
ing self-propelled guns. Only at Moed-
rath, lying between the river and the
canal, was the defense determined.
There, a local defense force, reinforced
by stragglers from units of the LVIII
Panzer Corps, held contingents of the
8th Division’s 121st Infantry at bay for
two days until a battalion of the 28th
Infantry crossed the Erft farther north
and came in on the German flank. 6
The conspicuous feature of the terrain
immediately beyond the Erft, west and
southwest of Cologne, is a low, plateau-
like ridge some twenty-five miles long,
the Vorgebirge. The slopes of the ridge
are broken by numerous lignite (“brown
coal”) surface mines with steep, clifflike
sides. Abandoned mines have filled
with water to create big lakes, often con-
fining passage to the width of the road-
ways. Factories and heavily urbanized
settlements abound. Northwest of Co-
logne, the country is generally flat and
pastoral, dotted with villages and small
towns, particularly along the major
highways radiating from Cologne.
Because of the basic requirement of
protecting the Ninth Army’s flank, the
VII Corps was to make its main effort
6 8th Div AAR, Mar 45.
north of Cologne, leaving the city to be
taken later. General Collins split re-
sponsibility for the assignment between
General Rose’s 3d Armored Division
and the 99th Infantry Division (Maj.
Gen. Walter E. Lauer) .
The critical assignment went to the
armor, beefed up during the opening
phase of breaking out of the Erft bridge-
head with attachment of the 99th Divi-
sion’s 395th Infantry. Rose was to strike
north from the bridgehead to cut the
Cologne–Muenchen-Gladbach highway
at the town of Stommeln, thereby sever-
ing a vital artery leading into the Ninth
Army’s flank, then was to turn northeast
to reach the Rhine at Worringen, eight
miles downstream from Cologne. A
clear intent was to split the enemy’s sec-
tor swiftly and forestall reassembly and
counterattack by remnants of the panzer
divisions of Corps Bayerlein. Mean-
while, General Lauer’s infantry was to
clear the ground between Rose’s armor
and the Erft with help from the 4th
Cavalry Group, while the 8th and 104th
Divisions on the corps right wing fought
their way through the lignite mining
district in the direction of Cologne. 7
When the armor attacked before day-
light on 2 March, all thrusts were suc-
cessful, but they failed to precipitate
immediate breakout. Conglomerate Ger-
man units, mainly from the 9th Panzer
Division, fought back stubbornly behind
antitank ditches and obstacles that made
up an extension of the third line of
field fortifications the Germans had pre-
pared behind the Roer. The gains here
were insufficient to have any effect on
the counterattack projected for that day
by the 11th Panzer Division into the
7 VII Corps Opns Memo 163, 25 Feb 45; VII
Corps FO 16, 1 Mar 45.
188 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Ninth Army’s flank; that failed to come
off only because the Ninth Army’s cap-
ture of Muenchen-Gladbach prevented
the Panzer Lehr Division from launch-
ing its converging thrust. 8
As night fell on 2 March, the armor
had expanded the Erft bridgehead to a
depth of three miles, which carried it
beyond the northern reaches of the
Vorgebirge into open country. From
that point the Germans would be capa-
ble only of delaying actions, almost al-
ways in towns and villages since the flat
terrain afforded few military features.
Although reinforced from time to time
by stragglers spilling across the Erft be-
fore the steamroller of the Ninth Army,
Corps Bayerlein had no depth. Con-
glomerate forces usually including a few
tanks or self-propelled guns would have
to gauge their defense carefully to keep
from being overrun in one village lest
there be nothing left to defend the next
one.
That fact was demonstrated early on
3 March when two task forces of Com-
bat Command Hickey moved before
dawn to take the Germans by surprise
in two villages southwest of Stommeln. 9
So complete was the surprise in the first
village. that the attacking armored in-
fantrymen incurred not a single cas-
ualty. At both villages the Germans
were annihilated, leaving nobody to a
final village still remaining short of
Stommeln, the division’s intermediate
objective.
Combat Command Howze moved
against Stommeln from three sides. De-
spite an extensive antitank minefield
covered by a relatively strong concen-
8 MS # B–202 (Mellenthin). See above, ch. IX.
9 The 3d Armored Division usually labeled its
combat commands after their commanders,
tration of antitank guns, the columns
converged on the town in late afternoon.
Aided by P–47 air strikes against the
antitank defenses, they cleared the last
resistance by nightfall. General Rose
meanwhile sent a column from his re-
serve, Combat Command Boudinot, be-
yond Stommeln to a village just four
miles from the Rhine. Only one more
town lay between the armor and the
final objective of Worringen.
The 99th Division had made com-
parable progress on the left, cutting the
Cologne–Muenchen-Gladbach highway
at several points late on 3 March. Nor
was success confined to the left wing of
the corps. Moving toward Cologne
astride the Aachen-Cologne highway and
the adjacent right-of-way of the uncom-
pleted Aachen-Cologne autobahn, the
104th Division made relatively short but
nevertheless telling gains. 10 So did the
8th Division, advancing astride the
Dueren-Cologne highway. Bearing the
additional responsibility of protecting
the open right flank of the corps, the 8th
Division had the slower going but still
took the second row of towns beyond the
Erft and gained a firm hold on western
slopes of the Vorgebirge. The 104th
Division cleared a big forest astride the
Aachen-Cologne highway and crossed
the crest of the Vorgebirge.
Even though the 3d Armored Division
still had several miles to go to reach the
Rhine, the VII Corps commander, Gen-
10 As the 104th Division prepared to attack before
daylight on March, a German shell struck the
command post of the 2d Battalion, 414th Infantry,
killing the battalion commander, Lt. Col. J oseph
M. Cummins, J r., and two visiting officers, Col.
Anthony J . Touart, 414th Infantry commander,
and Col. George A. Smith, J r., assistant division
commander. See Hoegh and Doyle, Timberwolf
Tracks, p. 257.
OPERATI ON LUMBERJ ACK 189
eral Collins, deemed it time to shift
emphasis from the northward thrust to
capturing Cologne. The armored divi-
sion’s advance already had split Corps
Bayerlein from Koechling’s LXXXI
Corps, leaving the remnants of the lat-
ter force as the only obstacle to taking
Cologne. For two days the Ninth Ar-
my’s right flank had been anchored on
the Rhine at Neuss, so that any threat
remaining from the 11th Panzer Division
was minimal. Fighter pilots throughout
the day had reported Germans scurrying
across the Rhine on ferries and small
craft, and more than 1,800 prisoners had
entered VII Corps cages.
Late on 3 March Collins told General
Rose to continue to the Rhine at Wor-
ringen the next day but at the same time
to divert a force southeast against Co-
logne. The attached 395th Infantry was
to return to the 99th Division to enable
the infantry division with the help of the
4th Cavalry Group to clear all ground
northwest of Worringen. 11
Not waiting for a new day before con-
tinuing to the Rhine, patrols of the 3d
Armored’s 83d Reconnaissance Battal-
ion in early evening of 3 March deter-
mined that the one town remaining
short of Worringen on the Rhine was
stoutly defended. Declining to give bat-
tle, the reconnaissance battalion turned
north over back roads, bypassed the
town, and in the process captured an
artillery battery and 300 surprised Ger-
mans. Before daylight a 4-man patrol
led by 1st Lt. Charles E. Coates reached
the Rhine north of Worringen. A task
force of Combat Command Boudinot
then moved up the main road at dawn,
cleared the defended town, repulsed a
11 VII Corps Opns Memo 167, 3 Mar 45.
counterattack by 200 infantry supported
by five tanks, and drove on to Worrin-
gen and the river.
The 99th Division had continued to
advance on the left in a manner indi-
cating that the threat from what was left
of Corps Bayerlein was empty. Un-
known to the Americans, the splitting of
Corps Bayerlein and the LXXXI Corps
had resulted in the paper transfer of the
tattered 9th Panzer Division to the
LXXXl Corps, leaving only a Kampf-
gruppe of the 11th Panzer Division and
stragglers of the 59th Infantry Division
available to Bayerlein. These had pre-
pared hasty defenses facing northwest
toward the Ninth Army, so that the 99th
Division was free to come in swiftly
from flank and rear. I n such a situation,
Bayerlein, his staff, and the 11th Panzer
Division were thinking less of fighting
than of escaping across the Rhine. 12
Despite Hitler’s refusal of every re-
quest to withdraw, most supporting
units by evening of 3 March had already
crossed the river, and the 11th Panzer
Division held only a small bridgehead
on the west bank north of Worringen.
Lacking authority to withdraw, General
Bayerlein saw the little bridgehead as
“the end of the world.” 13 On 5 March
approval finally came to pull back.
Through the day rear guards fought
hard to hold open two ferry sites; and
as night came, the last contingents of
Corps Bayerlein pushed out into the
stream.
On this same day, 5 March, the attack
of the VII Corps against Cologne got
going in earnest. The framework upon
which the thin fabric of defense of Ger-
many’s fourth largest city was hung was
12 MS # B–053 (Bayerlein).
13 I bi d.
190
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
THE DEMOLISHED HOHENZOLLERN BRIDGE at Cologne with cathedral in the
background.
General Koechling’s LXXXI Corps,
now heading the staffs and the few other
remains of the 9th Panzer, 363d Volks
Grenadier, and 3d Panzer Grenadier
Divisions. Koechling was to use what was
left of those three units—the equivalent
of two weak regiments—to defend a so-
called outer ring in the city’s suburbs,
while policemen, firemen, and anybody
else who could pull the trigger of a rifle
fought from an inner ring deep within
the city. Among the defenders of the
inner ring were the Volkssturm, a levy
of old men and youths Hitler had or-
dered to rally to the last-ditch defense
of the Reich. 14
As the 3rd Armored, 104th, and 8th
Divisions drove toward Cologne on 5
March, resistance was strongest in the
north, where General Rose’s armor
faced the seemingly ineradicable 9th
Panzer Division, and in the south where
the 8th Division at the end of the day
still was two miles short of the city
limits. The relatively slow progress of
the 8th Division reflected not only the
14 MS # B–202 (Mellenthin).
OPERATI ON LUMBERJ ACK
191
difficulties of attacking through the coal-
mining district but also the fact that the
division was striking the north flank of
the LVI I I Panzer Corps.
The armor nevertheless broke into
Cologne soon after daylight, to be fol-
lowed two hours later by the 104th Di-
vision from the west. I n a precursor of
what was to come as Allied armies fanned
out all across Germany, the stiffest fight
developed around an airfield where the
Germans turned sixteen stationary 88-
mm. antiaircraft guns against the tanks
of Combat Command Hickey. The
tanks finally eliminated the guns in
smoke-screened cavalrylike charge. Al-
most all resistance by the 9th Panzer Di-
vision collapsed a short while later when
the division commander, Generalmajor
Harald Freiherr von Elverfeldt, was
killed. 15
As evening approached, the First
Army commander, General Hodges,
shifted the southern boundary of the VII
Corps to the southeast to provide room
for the 8th Division to drive to the
Rhine south of Cologne and cut the en-
emy’s last landward escape route. 16 The
next day, 6 March, the 3d Armored
drove quickly through the heart of the
city, a wasteland from long years of
aerial bombardment, and reached the
Hohenzollern bridge, only to find a
1200-foot gap blown in it. Close by amid
the sea of ruins stood the stately Cologne
cathedral, damaged but basically intact.
By noon of 7 March almost all of
Cologne had been cleared, despite
curious crowds of civilians jamming the
rubble-strewn streets. No road or rail
crossing of the Rhine remained. A bat-
15 Ibi d.
16 VII Corps G–3 J nl, 5 Mar 45,
talion of the 8th Division’s 28th Infan-
try meanwhile reached the river south
of Cologne. For the third time in less
than a fortnight, the enemy’s forces were
split. The remnants of the LVI I I Pan-
zer Corps, along with contingents of the
3d Panzer Grenadier Division, which
had fallen back southward away from
Cologne, formed a last-ditch defense
across an eastward bend of the Rhine
but began to evacuate the position early
the next morning. 17
General Collins and his VII Corps
had completed their assigned role in the
drive to the Rhine in exactly two weeks,
at once a spearhead for the First Army
and protection for the flank of the Ninth
Army. I n operations begun on 25 Feb-
ruary, only two days after the VI I Corps
had assaulted the Roer River line, other
parts of the First Army meanwhile had
joined the race to the Rhine.
Toward Bonn and Remagen
The operations had begun with lim-
ited goals, though with the certainty that
they later would be expanded. The plan
was to uncover the line of the upper
Roer, protect Collins’s VI I Corps during
its added assignment beyond the Erft,
and at the same time gain a leg on the
drive to the Rhine.
General Hodges directed General
Millikin’s III Corps, which had joined
the First Army in the reorganization
that followed halting of the main effort
in the Eifel, to cross the Roer south of
Dueren and reach the Erft River north-
ward from the road center of Euskirchen.
When the VI I Corps turned to take
17 MSS # B–202 (Mellenthin); # B–080 (Lang-
haeuser); # B–098, 353d Infantry Division, 2–22
March 1945 (Oberst Kurt Hummel, CG).
192
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Cologne, the III Corps was to cross the
Erft and drive southeast to converge with
the Third Army “in the Ahrweiler
area,” the first basic objective of Brad-
ley’s Operation LUMBERJ ACK. The two
corps then were to clear the west bank
of the Rhine from the Ahr River to
Cologne. General Huebner’s V Corps at
the same time was to advance its left
wing as far as Euskirchen to protect the
south flank of the III Corps and to “pre-
pare for further advance to the east.” 18
Confronted with the swollen, closely
confined waters of the Roer tumbling
headlong through the gorge upstream
from Dueren, General Hodges devised a
crossing plan that avoided another
frontal joust with the river. He directed
a division of the III Corps to use bridges
of the VII Corps at Dueren, then attack
south to clear bridge sites upstream. Each
division in the corps in turn was to use
the neighboring division’s bridges, re-
peating the attack to the south to clear
additional bridge sites. A division of the
V Corps finally was to use bridges of the
III Corps to get beyond the waters of
the Roer reservoirs. 19
Two battalions of the 1st Division
started the maneuver in midmorning of
25 February, a few hours after the 8th
Division announced a footbridge and a
Bailey bridge available at Dueren. (See
Map VIII.) Crossing in the sector of the
adjacent division not only avoided frontal
attack across the Roer, it also enabled at-
tached tanks and tank destroyers to cross
with the infantry and lend weight to the
drive upstream that took the Germans of the
353d Infantry Division of Krueger’s LVIII
18 FUSA Rpt of Opns, 23 Feb–8 May 45, p. 12.
19 Sylvan Diary, entry of 24 Feb 45.
GENERAL MILLIKIN
Panzer Corps in flank. At noon one of the
infantry battalions attacked the Roer town
of Kreuzau and made such progress that
forty minutes later engineer units that had
been waiting impatiently in the wings west
of the river began building a footbridge
within the 1st Division’s sector.
As night came on 25 February, the
1st Division’s bridgehead already was
firmly established without the loss of a
man in the actual crossing of the river.
The infantry battalions of two regiments
were across, and forward positions were
as much as a mile and a half beyond the
river.
The next day, 26 February, as the 1st
Division expanded its bridgehead with
emphasis on gaining more of the east
bank of the Roer upstream to the south,
engineers put in a Bailey bridge that
OPERATI ON LUMBERJ ACK 193
enabled the 9th Division’s 39th Infantry
to repeat the river crossing maneuver in
late afternoon. Before daylight on 27
February, men of the 9th Division at-
tacked south to clear their own bridge
sites at Nideggen, picturesquely located
on the rim of the Cologne plain over-
looking the gorge of the Roer and the
road leading back to Schmidt and the
Roer dams. Resistance was firmer than
that faced by the 1st Division, mainly
because the 9th Division had crossed
into the sector of General Puechler’s
LXXIV Corps and encountered a rela-
tively battle-worthy unit, the 3 d Para-
chute Division. Having undergone a
hasty reorganization following the Ar-
dennes counteroffensive, the division
contained its full complement of three
parachute regiments, though all were
understrength. 20
The 78th Division’s 311th Infantry
crossed the Roer on the last day of Feb-
ruary through the 9th Division’s sector
and immediately attacked to the south,
covering more than a mile against the
272d Vol ks Grenadier Division. This
completed the river-crossing maneuver
in the I I I Corps, but as the 78th Division
created its own bridgehead plans pro-
ceeded for the V Corps to follow a simi-
lar procedure for getting beyond the
Roer reservoirs.
The III Corps commander, General
Millikin, had moved quickly to get his
armor into the fight as soon as the in-
hospitable terrain of the Eifel lay behind.
CCB of the 9th Armored Division (Maj.
Gen. J ohn W. Leonard) was to attack
east between the 1st and 9th Divisions to
reach the Erft several miles downstream
20 III Corps AAR, Feb 45; MS # B–118, LXXIV
Corps, 2 October 1944–28 March 1945 (General der
Infanterie Karl Puechler).
from Euskirchen, while CCA was to
move south and enter the zone of the
78th Division, then turn east, oriented
generally toward Euskirchen. CCA was
to be joined later by the rest of the
armored division operating in a “zone of
advance” within the sector of the late-
running 78th Division. The 14th Cavalry
Group was to follow CCA and protect
the south flank of the corps. 21
Attacking in early afternoon of 28
February, CCB before daylight the next
morning came abreast of the most ad-
vanced battalions of the 1st Division
along the Neffel Creek, half the 15-mile
distance from Roer to Erft. Beginning
its attack a day later on 1 March, CCA
smacked almost immediately into a de-
fensive position lying behind the upper
reaches of the Neffel Creek and barring
the way to the village of Wollersheim.
Manned by troops of the 3d Parachute
Division, the position was reinforced by
several tanks and assault guns. 22 When
an attack by dismounted armored infan-
trymen failed to carry it, CCA held up
for the night to await arrival the next
morning of an infantry battalion from
the 78th Division.
On the second day of March genuine
exploitation developed all along the
front of the III Corps. A double envelop-
ment by CCA’s 52d Armored Infantry
Battalion and an attached battalion of
the 310th Infantry carried the sticky po-
sition at Wollersheim, while the 309th
Infantry put the 78th Division into the
eastward drive and came almost abreast
of CCA. Those two advances brought an
end to solid defense by the enemy’s 3d
Parachute Division. Already the 353d
21 III Corps Opnl Dir # 4, 28 Feb 45.
22 III Corps AAR, Mar 45; MS # B–118 (Puech-
ler).
194 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Infantry Division in the north and the
272d Volks Grenadier Division, the lat-
ter trying to prevent expansion of the
78th Division’s bridgehead to the south,
were reduced to executing isolated de-
laying actions.
The commander of the LXXI V Corps,
General Puechler, had. nothing left to
use in the fight except a weak Kampf-
gruppe of the 62d Volks Grenadier Di-
vision, which had been reorganizing
behind the line when the American
attack began. He sent that force to the
north to try to maintain contact with the
faltering LVIII Panzer Corps, but so
weak was the Kampfgruppe that the at-
tacking American troops hardly noticed
its presence. 23
The 1st Division on the 2d got within
three miles of the Erft, while in the
center, the 9th Armored’s CCB crossed
the river along the Euskirchen-Cologne
highway. Following in the wake of CCB,
one regiment of the 9th Division ap-
proached within two miles of the Erft.
To many a soldier in the III Corps,
this day and those immediately follow-
ing could be summed up in two words:
mud and fatigue. As light snow flurries
ended in midmorning, a warm sun
triggered a latent springtime in the soil
and turned roads and fields into clinging
mud. The mud and daytime attacks
alone would have been enough to pro-
duce fatigue, but hardly was there a
commander who did not continue to
push his men through much of the night
in order to overcome the advantage that
flat, open fields afforded the enemy in
observation.
At command levels, 2 March and the
23 III Corps AAR, Mar 45; MS # B–118 (Puech.
ler) .
three days following brought preoccupa-
tion with boundary changes and juggling
of units as General Bradley’s original
plan for clearing the west bank of the
Khine underwent revision. Prompted by
the relative ease with which Millikin’s
I I I Corps was advancing, the change
limited responsibility of Collins’s VII
Corps to the city of Cologne while the
I I I Corps was to clear the west bank of
the Rhine throughout the rest of the
First Army’s zone from Cologne to the
Ahr River. At the same time the I I I
Corps retained responsibility for crossing
the Ahr and establishing contact with
the Third Army. 24
The first shift came on 2 March when
General Millikin transferred the 14th
Cavalry Group to his north flank for
attachment to the 1st Division in antici-
pation of broadening the 1st Division’s
sector. The boundary change became ef-
fective the next day, 3 March, as the 26th
Infantry jumped the Erft and began to
climb the Vorgebirge, southwest of Co-
logne, seven miles from the Rhine.
While the 9th Armored’s CCB held in
place on the Erft, awaiting relief by
units of the 1st Division, CCA took the
ancient walled town of Zuelpich against
little more than a show of resistance. At
the end of the day General Millikin
assigned the armor a specific zone be-
tween the 9th and 78th Divisions.
Despite the importance Bradley and
the First Army’s General Hodges at-
tached to gaining bridgeheads over the
Ahr River for linkup with the Third
Army, it was obvious from orders issued
by Millikin and his division commanders
that the fabled Rhine was the more ir-
24 12th AGp Ltr of Instrs 16, 3 Mar 45, 12th AGp
Rpt of Opns, vol. V.
OPERATI ON LUMBERJ ACK 195
resistible attraction. 25 The 1st Division
was to reach the river north of Bonn, the
9th Division to take Bonn, and one col-
umn of the 9th Armored to come up to
the Rhine midway between Bonn and
the Ahr. Only one column of the
armored division, protected on the south
flank by the 78th Division operating in
a confined sector, was directed toward the
Ahr.
The emphasis on the Rhine around
Bonn coincided with expectations of the
German army group commander, Field
Marshal Model. Believing the main ef-
fort of the I I I Corps to be directed at
Bonn, Model began to make ambitious
but futile plans to reinforce the city
with the 11th Panzer Division once that
division had withdrawn from the tri-
angle between Erft and Rhine north of
Cologne, and even to counterattack with
the panzer division. 26
The Fifteenth Army commander, Gen-
eral von Zangen, responsible now for
this sector, saw it another way. I n driving
to the Erft, Zangen might note, the III
Corps had cleared the cup of a funnel
delineated on one side by the Eifel, on
the other by the Vorgebirge. The obvi-
ous move at this point, Zangen believed,
was a drive down the spout of the funnel
from Euskirchen southeast of Rheinbach
and the Ahr River, thence along the
north bank of the Ahr to the Rhine at
Sinzig and the nearby town of Remagen.
The town of Remagen was of particu-
lar importance because of the location
there of a railroad bridge that was being
covered with a plank flooring for motor
25 Even though the First Army G–3 had made it
clear otherwise. See Memo, sub: Resume of I n-
structions From General Thorson, G–3 First U.S.
Army, 28 Feb 45, III Corps G–3 J nl file, 28 Feb–
1 Mar 45.
26 MS # B–828 (Zangen).
traffic to provide a vital supply artery
for the Fifteenth Army. To block the
way to Remagen, Zangen asked permis-
sion to withdraw his LXVI and LXVII
Corps from the Eifel, where they faced
entrapment even if they succeeded in the
apparently impossible task of holding
their West Wall positions. To this Model
said no. The two corps were to continue
to hold in conformity with Hitler’s long-
standing orders to relinquish no portion
of the West Wall without a fight. If
forced back, Puechler’s LXXIV Corps
was to gravitate toward Bonn. 27
To Zangen and any other German
commander on the scene, probably in-
cluding Model himself, the absurdity of
further attempts to hold west of the
Rhine was all too apparent. The only
hope was quick withdrawal to save as
much as possible to fight another day on
the east bank. 28
Puechler’s LXXIV Cor ps provided an
obvious case in point. What was left
of the corps was incapable of a real
fight for even such an important ob-
jective as Euskirchen, a road center
yielded after only “light resistance”
to the 9th Armored Division’s CCA on
4 March. Seldom could counterattacks
be mounted in greater than company
strength and usually they had no artil-
lery support. Furthermore, the corps
was split as continued advances by the
78th Division on the south wing of the
III Corps forced back the 272d Volks
Grenadier Division onto the neighbor-
ing LXVII Corps. The split became ir-
reparable when on 3 March the 2d
27 I bi d.
28 This theme runs through all German manu-
scripts for the period. Even allowing €or postwar
extenuation, it can hardly be questioned except in
degree.
196 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Infantry Division of the V Corps crossed
the 78th Division’s Roer bridges and
headed south through the Eifel toward
Gemuend at the head of the Roer res-
ervoir system. 29
The boundary adjustments on the
American side continued on 5 March
when General Hodges made the change
that allowed the 8th Division of the VII
Corps to drive to the Rhine south of
Cologne. Late the same evening Hodges
also adjusted the boundary between the
III and V Corps, turning it distinctly
southeast to a point on the Ahr upstream
from Ahrweiler, thereby providing the
III Corps over ten miles of frontage on
the Ahr.
Those two moves eliminated any lin-
gering misconception about the impor-
tance Bradley and Hodges attached to
crossing the Ahr River. Early the next
day General Millikin shifted all his di-
vision objectives to the southeast—the
1st Division to Bonn, the 9th Division
to Bad Godesberg, the 9th Armored Di-
vision to Remagen and the Ahr from
Sinzig to Bad Neuenahr, and the 78th
Division to Ahrweiler. When the 9th
Armored’s G–3, Lt. Col. J ohn S. Grow-
don, telephoned to ask whether the
armor should continue to make its main
effort toward the Rhine, the III Corps
G–3, Col. Harry C. Mewshaw, replied
unequivocally that the Rhine was of
secondary importance. The main goal,
he said, was “to seize towns and cross-
ings over the Ahr River.” 30
Patton in the Eifel
The force that was to link with troops
of the First Army along the Ahr, Patton’s
29 Quotation is from III Corps AAR, Mar 45.
30 III Corps G–3 J nl file, 6–7 Mar 45.
Third Army, had made a start on the
assignment in late February and the first
days of March with the “probing attacks”
that captured Trier and advanced the
VIII Corps to the Pruem River and the
XI I Corps to the Kyll. The decision
General Patton faced then—whether to
turn southeast and envelop the Saar in-
dustrial area or to head through the
Eifel to the Rhine—the army group
commander, General Bradley, already
had made for him. The goal was the
Rhine.
On the assumption that this job would
be soon done, Patton planned a second-
ary attack to set the stage for clearing the
Saar. To General Walker’s XX Corps,
he assigned a narrow one-division zone
north of the Moselle running from the
Kyll to one of the big northward loops
of the Moselle, some thirty-six miles
downstream from Trier. The zone en-
closed a shallow depression lying be-
tween the high ground of the Mosel
Berge, which parallels the Moselle, and
the main Eifel massif. Clearing it would
provide access to the transverse valley
leading to the Moselle at the picturesque
wine center of Bernkastel and thence
into the heart of the Saarland. 31
To General Bradley’s protest that the
Third Army was spreading its forces too
thin and would be unable to make a
‘‘power drive” to the Rhine, Patton re-
plied that the terrain and the roadnet in
the Eifel permitted a power drive by no
more than two divisions in any case. 32
The VIII and XII Corps faced the Hohe
Eifel, the high or volcanic Eifel, a region
even more rugged in places than the
31 TUSA Opnl Dir, 3 Mar 45; XX Corps AAR,
Mar 45. For further mention of this attack, see
below, ch. XII.
32 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 252.
OPERATION LUMBERJ ACK
197
western reaches of the Eifel that the
corps already had conquered. There, in
an effort to overcome the weird convolu-
tions of the land, the limited roads gen-
erally follow the low ground along the
stream beds, somehow eventually ending
up at the Ahr, the Rhine, or the Moselle.
If the Third Army in this kind of ter-
rain was to hope to keep pace with the
First Army on the open Cologne plain,
daring would have to be a major part of
of the plan.
When the Third Army's long-term
ally, the XI X Tactical Air Command,
reported that the enemy already showed
evidence of withdrawing and probably
would limit his stands to blocking posi-
tions along the roads, that was all Patton
needed. He ordered that, once the VI I I
and XII Corps had established bridge-
heads over the Kyll, an armored division
of each corps was to thrust rapidly north-
eastward along the better roads without
regard to the wooded heights in between.
Artillery and fighter-bombers were to
take care of the high ground until motor-
ized infantry could follow to secure the
gains. 33
Since General Bradley's plan for Op-
eration LUMBERJ ACK had put the burden
of linking the First and Third Armies
along the Ahr River on the First Army,
General Patton was free to think pri-
marily in terms of reaching the Rhine.
He directed Middleton's VIII Corps to
gain the river around Brohl, midway be-
tween the Ahr and the ancient Rhine
town of Andernach, while the XII Corps
(commanded again by General Eddy
after return from a brief leave) came up
to the river at Andernach.
When Patton's order came, the VIII
33 XIX TAC AAR, Mar 45.
Corps stood generally along the Pruem
River, still some ten miles short of the
Kyll. As a corollary to successful clearing
of the Vianden bulge, the 6th Cavalry
Group and the 6th Armored Division
had made substantial advances beyond
the Pruem, but they were in the south
of the corps zone, relatively far from
the main roads leading to the Rhine at
Brohl. Besides, the 6th Armored was ear-
marked for early transfer to the SHAEF
reserve, that irritating outgrowth of the
Ardennes counteroffensive that seemed
constantly to be plaguing some unit of
the Third Army. Thus Middleton or-
dered the 4th Division at the town of
Pruem to enlarge its bridgehead over the
Pruem River, whereupon the 11th Ar-
mored Division was to pass through and
strike due east to jump the Kyll, then
strike northeast to the Rhine. The 4th
Division was to follow to mop up, the
87th Division was to protect the north
flank, and the 90th Division, taking the
place of the 6th Armored, was to ad-
vance on the south wing. 34
With units of the XI I Corps already
up to the Kyll, General Eddy gave the
job of forging a bridgehead to an infan-
try division, the 5th; then the 4th
Armored Division was to pass through to
drive northeast to Andernach. The 5th
Division and the 80th were to follow,
while the 76th Division protected the
right flank. 35
On the enemy side, it was an under-
statement to say that German com-
manders viewed the pending Third
Army offensive with anxiety, since the
February attacks in the Eifel already had
34 VIII Corps Opnl Memos 26 and 27, 1 and 2
Mar 45; VIII Corps G–3 J nl file, 1–3 Mar 45.
35 XII Corps Opns Dirs 83 and 84, 1 and 2 Mar
45.
198 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
severely lacerated General Felber’s Sev-
enth Army. How long the Seventh Army
could hold in the Eifel depended entirely
on how soon and how vigorously the
Americans attacked.
A breakthrough across the Kyll could
prove fatal, not only to the Seventh Army
itself but to the two corps (LXVI and
LXVII) forming the center and south
wing of the Fifteenth Army and to the
entire First Army, the north wing of
Hawser’s Army Group G. Should the
First and Third U.S. Armies quickly
join along the west bank of the Rhine,
the two corps of the Fifteenth Army
would be encircled. I n the process, the
Third Army’s clearing of the north bank
of the Moselle would expose from the
rear the West Wall pillboxes in the Saar-
land, still held by the First Army.
A partial solution, as the Seventh
Army’s General Felber saw it, was for the
Seventh Army to withdraw from the
Eifel and protect Army Group G’s rear
by defending the line of the Moselle; but
in view of Hitler’s continuing stand-fast
orders, nobody higher up the ladder of
command took the proposal seriously.
The only change made was to transfer
the faltering Seventh Army on 2 March
from Model’s Army Group B to Haus-
ser’s Army Group G. By vesting control
in the army group headquarters that had
most to lose should the Seventh Army
collapse, the change inferred some
strengthening of the Seventh Army by
Army Group G. I n reality, it merely
shifted from one army group headquar-
ters to another the dolorous task of pre-
siding over the Seventh Army’s agony.
From confluence of the Kyll and the
Moselle near Trier to a point near
Pruem, the Seventh Army’s zone covered
some thirty-five miles. The most seriously
threatened part, General Felber believed,
was the center opposite Bitburg, for
there stood the U.S. 4th Armored Di-
vision, a unit looked upon with consid-
erable respect by German commanders.
With this in mind, Felber shifted to
the sector headquarters of the XIII
Corps on the premise that the corps com-
mander, General von Oriola, having only
recently arrived at the front, would be
steadier under the coming crisis than
would General von Rothkirch, com-
mander of the LIII Corps, who for weeks
had been watching his command disinte-
grate. Thus the new lineup of corps from
north to south was the LIII Corps (Roth-
kirch) near Pruem, the XIII Corps
(Oriola) opposite Bitburg, and the
LXXX Corps (Beyer) between Bitburg
and the Moselle.
The Seventh Army contained, nomi-
nally, ten divisions, but only two—rem-
nants of the 2d Panzer Division east of
Bitburg and the 246th Volks Grenadier
Division, the latter hurried down from
what was now the Fifteenth Army’s sec-
tor too late to save Bitburg—could
muster much more than a small Kampf-
gruppe. Both divisions were to remain
with the XIII Corps in keeping with the
theory that Patton’s main thrust would
be made there with the 4th Armored
Division. Because the attack by the U.S.
VIII Corps would spill over the Seventh
Army’s northern boundary against the
extreme south wing of the Fifteenth
Army, another division with some credit-
able fighting power remaining, the 5th
Parachute Division of the LXVI Corps
(Lucht), also would be involved. Neither
the Seventh Army nor the Fifteenth
Army had any reserves, although the
Seventh did possess a separate tank bat-
talion with some ten to fifteen Tiger
OPERATI ON LUMBERJ ACK
199
tanks. This battalion General Felber
wanted to send to his center opposite
Bitburg, but he would still be searching
for sufficient gasoline to move the tanks
from a field repair shop in the sector of
the LIII Corps when the American at-
tack began. 36
Because of the requirement to get
from the Pruem River to the Kyll, Gen-
eral Middleton’s VIII Corps began to
attack first. Indeed, since the south wing
of the corps had never stopped attacking
after clearing the Vianden bulge and
since the XX Corps and the 76th Di-
vision of the XII Corps still were giving
the coup de grâce to Trier as the month
of March opened, no real pause devel-
oped between the February probing at-
tacks and the March offensive.
For the 4th Infantry Division, enlarg-
ing its minuscule bridgehead over the
Pruem to enable the 11th Armored Di-
vision to pass through, the task was no
pushover, primarily because of the pres-
ence of the enemy’s 5th Parachute Di-
vision. Given some respite since the
American drive on Pruem had bogged
down on 10 February, the Germans de-
fended from well-organized positions and
employed unusually large numbers of
machine guns. So determined was the
resistance that General Middleton at one
point postponed the target date for the
armored exploitation twenty-four hours,
although subsequent gains prompted
him to reinstate it for the original date
of 3 March. Nor was stanch resistance
confined to the sector of the 4th Division.
Protecting the corps left flank by re-
36 German material comes primarily from MSS
# B–831 (Felber); # B–828 (Zangen); # B–123
(Gersdorff): and # B–797, LIII Corps, 27 February
—10 March 1945 (Oberst Werner Bodenstein, Opns
Officer LIII Corps).
ducing West Wall pillboxes on the
Schnee Eifel ridge, the 87th Division
found that the fortifications still put con-
siderable starch into the defense.
Passing through the infantry shortly
after midday on 3 March, Combat Com-
mand B of the 11th Armored Division
attacked to seize crossings of the Kyll in
a big bend of the river north of Gerol-
stein, some eleven miles northeast of
Pruem. Delayed by confusion in the
passage of lines, the armor failed to ad-
vance the first afternoon as much as two
miles. I t was nevertheless apparent that
the Germans could muster no real
strength short of the Kyll once the tanks
got rolling. By late afternoon the next
day, 4 March, the combat command
overlooked the Kyll from heights a mile
southwest of Gerolstein, but patrols sent
down to the river drew intense small
arms fire from both the east bank and
from high ground in the bend of the
river. Antitank and artillery fire also
rained from the east bank in disturbing
volume.
Having followed the path of least
resistance, the armor had come up to
the Kyll south of its intended crossing
site at a point where troops trying to
cross would be exposed to fire not only
from dominating ground beyond the
river but from the big bend as well.
Impressed both by the terrain and the
amount of German fire and apparently
reluctant to risk involving the armor in
what could be a time-consuming river-
crossing operation, the division com-
mander, General Kilburn, asked for
infantry help. While the 4th Division
cleared the high ground in the bend of
the Kyll, Kilburn suggested, CCB might
swing to the north and cross the river
north of the bend.
200 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Although the corps commander, Gen-
eral Middleton, approved, the maneuver
took time, particularly when determined
Germans, again mainly from the 5th
Parachute Division, kept a regiment of
the 4th Division out of the bend in the
river through much of 5 March. By 6
March, the fourth day after passing
through the 4th Division, CCB did get
some troops across the Kyll, but only
armored infantry supported by a smat-
tering of tanks and tank destroyers that
managed to cross at a ford before the
river bed gave way.
Even with a foothold already estab-
lished on the east bank, General Kilburn
remained reluctant to commit his armor
to the river crossing operation. Again
he prevailed on General Middleton for
permission to use infantry of the 4th
Division. Only after the infantrymen had
expanded CCB’s foothold were the tanks
and tank destroyers to renew the drive
toward the Rhine.
’While the armor dallied, less con-
servative forces elsewhere in the VIII
Corps rapidly rewrote the entire script
for crossing the Kyll. Assigned to protect
the left flank of the corps, the 87th Di-
vision went a step further, overtook the
armored spearhead, and jumped the Kyll
just after midday of the 6th on a bridge
captured intact. The 90th Division, com-
manded now by Brig. Gen. Herbert L.
Earnest and committed on 2 March on
the corps south wing to relieve the 6th
Armored Division, scored an even more
striking advance. At the point on the
Kyll southwest of Gerolstein that Gen-
eral Kilburn earlier had spurned as a
crossing site, a task force organized
around the division reconnaissance troop
and two attached medium tank com-
panies jumped the river before daylight
on 6 March. At the same time, men of
the 359th Infantry crossed a few hundred
yards to the south. By late afternoon
contingents of the 90th Division had
taken Gerolstein and established a
bridgehead over a mile and a half deep
and some two and a half miles wide.
General Middleton in early evening
ordered General Kilburn to alert a sec-
ond combat command, CCA, to cross the
Kyll through the 90th Division’s bridge-
head. In the end, CCB also would back-
track and use the 90th Division’s crossing
site.
J ust before daylight on 7 March, engi-
neers of the 90th Division—having
worked with the aid of searchlights—
opened a Bailey bridge over the Kyll. I n
midmorning, CCA began to cross. The
11th Armored Division at last might get
started in earnest on an exploitation that
was to have proceeded without interrup-
tion beginning five days earlier. Yet Kil-
burn’s men would have to hurry if again
they were not to be overtaken by events
precipitated by mare audacious units, for
to the south, opposite Bitburg, General
Eddy’s XII Corps had struck in a man-
ner not to be denied.
Veterans of many a river-crossing op-
eration, infantrymen of the 5th Division
sent patrols across the Kyll before day-
light on 3 March, then threw in foot-
bridges to allow the bulk of two
battalions to cross near Metterich, due
east of Bitburg. Fanning out to the high
ground, the infantry cleared Metterich
before nightfall, while engineers put in
a vehicular bridge before daylight on the
4th. Except against the crossings them-
selves, the Germans reacted strongly, at
one point launching a determined
counterattack supported by three tanks,
apparently from the 2d Panzer Division,
OPERATION LUMBERJ ACK 201
but to no avail. By dark on 4 March, the
bridgehead was ready for exploitation. I t
was only a question of when General
Patton chose to turn the 4th Armored
Division loose.
Patton, Eddy, and the armored di-
vision commander, General Gaffey, had
only one real concern: weather. Days of
alternating rain and rapidly melting
snow, freeze and thaw, already had
wreaked havoc on the generally poor
roads of the Eifel, and continued precipi-
tation could severely crimp the plan for
the armor to drive boldly forward on the
roads, leaving the ground in between to
air and artillery. Yet weather alone was
hardly sufficient reason to delay the ex-
ploitation. The armor got set to move at
daylight the next day, 5 March.
General Gaffey’s orders were explicit.
Passing through the 5th Division’s
bridgehead, two combat commands were
to drive north for some eight miles over
parallel roads in rear of the enemy’s Kyll
River defenses. Having sliced the under-
pinnings from much of the XIII Corps
and part of the LIII Corps, the armor
was to swerve northeast near the village
of Oberstadtfeld (five and a half miles
southeast of Gerolstein) and head for the
Rhine near Andernach, there to seize
any bridges that might still stand. 37
Combat Command B in the lead
quickly began to roll. As the tanks ap-
proached the first village north of the
5th Division’s forward line, artillery and
rocket fire ranged near the column; but
the tanks roared ahead. A contingent of
Germans in the village threw hands high
in surrender. Although rain, snow flur-
ries, and overcast denied any tactical air
37 XII Corps FO 15, 2 Mar 45; 4th Armored Div
FO 12, 3 Mar 45.
support, the armor quickly picked up
speed. The combat command’s reports
of the day’s advance soon began to read
like a bus or railroad timetable—0845:
Orsfeld; 1135: Steinborn; 1350: Meis-
burg; and at the end of the day: Weiden-
bach, twelve miles northeast of the
bridge over which the armor had crossed
the Kyll.
In one day CCB’s tankers had broken
through the north wing of Oriola’s XIII
Corps, plunged deep into the south wing
of Rothkirch’s LI I I Corps, and sent over
a thousand Germans straggling back to
prisoner-of-war compounds. The fighting
at day’s end at Weidenbach emerged
from a desperate effort by General von.
Rothkirch to delay the advance with the
only reserve he could assemble, a Nebel-
werfer brigade. Draining the last drops
of fuel from command cars and other
vehicles, Rothkirch managed also to send
toward Weidenbach a few of the Tiger
tanks that had been languishing in a
repair shop, but they failed to arrive
during the night and were destined to
be shot up individually in the next day’s
fighting.
Rothkirch also ordered the 340th
Vol ks Grenadier Division, continuing to
hold positions along the Kyll west of the
American penetration, to escape during
the night along a secondary road still
open north of Weidenbach. Counting on
the Americans’ calling off the war during
the night, Rothkirch intended the 340th
to establish a blocking position at Ober-
stadtfeld, but hours before dawn on the
6th, the American combat command was
on the move again. The tanks entered
Oberstadtfeld long before the men of
the 340th arrived, forcing the Germans
to abandon all vehicles and artillery and
to try to escape by infiltrating northeast-
202 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
ward across the tail of the American
column. 38
Unlike CCB, the 4th Armored’s CCA
found the going slow on the first day, 5
March, primarily because CCA had been
relegated to secondary roads farther east.
Boggy from alternate freeze and thaw,
the roads and a demolished bridge over
a creek at the village of Oberkail held
the day’s advance to a few miles. Hardly
had the tankers warmed their motors the
next morning, 6 March, when continu-
ing reports of rapid gains by CCB
prompted General Gaffey to order CCA
to follow in the other command’s wake
on the main highway, leaving the sec-
ondary roads to the 5th Division.
The infantry division now was ex-
periencing real problems—not so much
from the enemy as from the complexities
of traffic on narrow, poorly surfaced,
winding roads. Until all vehicles of the
armored division could clear the bridge-
head, the armor had priority; yet the
infantrymen also were under orders to
move swiftly lest the armor get too f ar
beyond reach of infantry support. With
great distances hampering radio com-
munications and the roads too congested
for motor messengers, orders to forward
units of the 5th Division had to be
dropped from liaison planes.
The weather on 6 March again was so
bad—rain and fog—that tactical aircraft
for the second day could provide no
help; but the armor scarcely needed it,
for the Germans were in a state of con-
fusion. Even though the tankers actually
cleared the enemy from little more than
the road and shoulders, preattack con-
cern that the Germans might continue
38 MS # E-797 (Bodenstein); XII Corps G–3 J nl,
5 Mar 45; 4th Armored Div Periodic Rpt, 6 Mar
45.
to defend from woods and adjacent high
ground failed to materialize. Germans in
great bunches, sometime numbering in
the hundreds, streamed from hills,
woods, and villages to surrender.
At one point, so many surrendering
Germans were clustered about a column
of tanks of the 37th Tank Battalion that
the LI I I Corps commander, General von
Rothkirch, driving past in his command
car, assumed it was a German formation.
Too late he saw what was actually hap-
pening.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
asked 1st Lt. J oe Liese of the 37th Tank
Battalion’s Company B.
“It looks like,” Rothkirch replied, not
without a touch of irony, “I’m going to
the American rear.” 39
Monitoring the American radio net,
German intelligence quickly picked up
the news of Rothkirch’s capture and the
extent of CCB’s penetration. Apparently
with approval of OB WEST, Model at
Army Group B tacitly acknowledged the
fact that the LIII Corps had been cut off
from the rest of the Seventh Army by
subordinating the corps to Zangen’s Fif-
teenth Army, whose LXVI and LXVII
Corps still held portions of the West
Wall opposite the US. V Corps, Model
also ordered forward a new commander
for the LIII Corps, Generalmajor Wal-
ther Botsch, who earlier had been
charged with preparing defenses for a
bridgehead to be held at Bonn and
Kemagen. Even though troops of the
American First Army were fast bearing
down on both those towns, so urgent did
Model consider the need for a new com-
mander of the LI I I Corps that he refused
39 George Dyer, XII Corps-Spearhead of Patton’s
Third Army (XII Corps History Association, 1947)
(hereafter cited as Dyer, XII Corps), p. 330.
OPERATION LUMBERJ ACK 203
to allow General Botsch to wait long
enough to brief his successor on the situa-
tion at Bonn and Remagen.40
From that point, no commander on
the German side could have entertained
any genuine hope for continued defense
west of the Rhine either by the LIII
Corps or by the other two corps of the
Fifteenth Army still in the Eifel, the
LXVI (Lucht) and LXVI I (Hitzfeld).
The three corps obviously were in im-
minent danger of encirclement. I t was
without question now a matter of trying
to save whoever and whatever to help
defend the Rhine, but in view of the
stranglehold the word of Hitler still ex-
ercised at every level, nobody would
authorize withdrawal. Botsch, the other
corps commanders, Zangen at Fifteenth
Army, and Model at Army Group B—
all focused their General Staff-trained
minds on issuing defense, assembly, and
counterattack orders that looked as pretty
as a war game on paper but made no
sense in the grim reality of the situation
in the Eifel. I n the process, each pro-
tested to his next higher commander the
idiocy of it all.
Model, for his part, ordered the 11th
Panzer Division—or what was left of it
after withdrawal from the triangle be-
tween the Erft and the Rhine north of
Cologne-to recross the Rhine at Bonn
and counterattack southwest toward
Rheinbach to cut off spearheads of the
First U.S. Army’s III Corps. That was a
patent impossibility. The remnants of
the panzer division would be too late
even to recross the Rhine, much less
counterat tack.
Still convinced the main objective of
the III Corps was not Bonn but Rema-
gen, General von Zangen ordered Gen-
eral Hitzfeld of the LXVI I Corps to
assume command of the 272d Volks
Grenadier Division, already forced back
onto this corps by the south wing of the
attack of the U.S. I I I Corps. He was
then to turn over his West Wall obliga-
tions to the LXVI Corps, and with the
272d and his own divisions (89th and
277th) to counterattack on 7 March into
the flank of the III Corps southeast of
Rheinbach to cut the “funnel” leading
to the Ahr River and Remagen. 4I
After making the usual protest that the
project simply was not feasible, Hitzfeld
went through the motions of readying
the counterattack. Already the corps was
in a somewhat better position to assemble
than might have been expected, for as
early as 3 March the 89th Infantry and
277th Volks Grenadier Divisions had be-
gun limited withdrawals from the West
Wall positions in the vicinity of the
Roer reservoirs. By 6 March the two di-
visions were some five miles behind their
original lines, almost out of contact
with the Americans except on the right
wing where the 2d Division of the U.S.
V Corps had joined the general of-
fensive. 42
Even so, assembling for counterattack
in the face of continuing advances by
the III Corps in the north and the north-
eastward thrusts of the VIII Corps still
was impossible. About all Hitzfeld ac-
complished in that direction was further
to clog roads already choked with with-
drawing columns and to expose the north
flank of the LX VI Corps. Continued bad
flying weather was the only thing that
prevented Allied aircraft from turning
the entire situation to utter chaos.
40 MS #B-828 (Zangen).
41 MSS #B-101 (Hitzfeld); B-828 (Zangen).
42 MS #B-828 (Zangen).
204
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
The position of General Lucht’s LXVI
Corps, still holding some West Wall po-
sitions astride the Weisserstein water-
shed, was most perilous of all. Already
the south wing of the corps had been
forced back by the drive of the U.S.
VI I I Corps to the Kyll River northeast
of Pruem. With the north flank exposed
also by Hitzfeld’s withdrawal, Lucht’s
divisions now were in serious trouble, a
fact underscored early on 6 March when
the V Corps commander, General Hueb-
ner, began to broaden his thrust—here-
tofore confined to the 2d Division on his
north wing—by sending the 69th Di-
vision (Maj. Gen. Emil F. Reinhardt)
eastward in the center of his zone. I t
would be driven home with even greater
emphasis the next day when the 28th
and 106th Divisions also joined the
attack. While a regiment of the 2d Di-
vision plunged forward ten miles and
took a bridge intact across the Ahr River,
a column of the 28th Division (Maj.
Gen. Norman D. Cota) overran Lucht’s
command post, bagging most of the corps
headquarters, including the chief of staff.
Lucht himself escaped because he was
away at the time. 43
When General Botsch arrived to join
the LIII Corps with the unenviable as-
signment of assuming command, he
learned he had scarcely any combat
troops left. Such as there were—tiny rem-
nants of the 326th and 340th Vol ks
Grenadier Divisions —the corps chief of
staff had organized into battle groups
and given the only realistic mission pos-
sible, to harass American columns as best
they could.
During the day of 6 March, CCB of
the 4th Armored Division gained another
43 V Corps Operations in the ETO, p. 394.
thirteen and a half miles, roughly half
the distance between the jump-off on
the Kyll and the Rhine near Andernach,
then veered northeast off the main high-
way in the direction of the road center
of Mayen. That added another five miles
to the day’s total before the armor had
to stop for the night because of crum-
bling roads. Other than a growing prob-
lem of handling hundreds of prisoners,
the combat command had no real diffi-
culty all day except for an undefended
roadblock that took about an hour to
remove and occasional fire from assault
guns or isolated field pieces on the
flanks. Although CCA attempted to di-
verge from CCB’s route to force a second
passage a few miles to the south, de-
molished bridges eventually forced that
combat command to tie in again on the
tail of CCB.
The infantry divisions of the XI I
Corps in the meantime still found the
going slow because of boggy roads, de-
molished bridges, heavy traffic, and
sometimes determined resistance. Hav-
ing turned north immediately after cross-
ing the Kyll, the armor had left the in-
fantry to deal with the two divisions
( 246t h Volk Grenadier and 2d Panzer)
upon which the Seventh Army’s General
Felber had based his unenthusiastic
hopes of stopping the armor. As night
came on the 6th, neither the 5th Divi-
sion nor the 76th, the latter having
crossed the Kyll southeast of Bitburg,
held bridgeheads more than a few miles
deep.
Matters would improve only slightly
for the infantry divisions the next day,
7 March. A predawn counterattack, for
exampIe, knocked a battalion of the 5th
Division from a village on the north-
eastern periphery of the bridgehead.
OPERATION LUMBERJ ACK 205
Although real and disturbing to the
men and commanders who had to over-
come it, this resistance when viewed
against the backdrop of developments
elsewhere in the Eifel on 7 March was
negligible and futile. I t was on this day
that defenses of the LXVI and LXVII
Corps in front of the U.S. V Corps be-
gan to fall apart. On 7 March also the
11th Armored Division in Middleton’s
VIII Corps at last got across the Kyll
River in strength at Gerolstein and ad-
vanced eleven miles. As night fell, the
armor took the important crossroads vil-
lage of Kelberg, near a famous prewar
automobile race course, the Nuerburg
Ring. In the process, the tankers forced
the newly arrived commander of the
LIII Corps, General Botsch, and his
headquarters troops to flee.
Even more spectacular and—in the
end—decisive was the advance on 7
March of the 4th Armored Division’s
front-running CCB. Backtracking sev-
eral miles to get on a better highway and
avoid the crumbling roads that had
stalled advance the evening before, CCB
attacked in early morning through rain
and fog. Brushing aside halfhearted re-
sistance in the first village, the column
paused on the fringe of the second, Kai-
sersesch, while a German-speaking sol-
dier, using an amplifier, demanded sur-
render. A heterogeneous collection of
German troops meekly complied. Racing
on, the tankers drew their next fire five
miles farther along at Kehrig. This time
a demand for surrender drew more fire
from Panzerfausts and antitank guns, but
an artillery concentration on the town
brought a quick end to the defiance.
From that point, the advance was little
more than a road march with the tank-
ers signaling German soldiers rearward
to be taken prisoner by those who fol-
lowed. Here and there along the road
clusters of impressed laborers of almost
every European nationality waved and
cheered.
At one point, 1st Lt. Edgar C. Smith,
piloting an artillery observation plane,
spotted a column of retreating Germans
not far ahead, obscured from the tankers
by the rolling countryside. At Smith’s
urging, a company of Sherman tanks
speeded up in pursuit.
“They’re only 1,500 yards from you
now, go faster,” radioed Lieutenant
Smith.
Later he reported they were only a
thousand yards away, still screened by
the terrain.
After another pause, the radio crack-
led again.
“They’re around the next curve,”
Smith said. “Go get ’em!”
The tanks burst upon the rear of the
startled Germans and raked the column
with 75’s and machine guns. 44
As night fell, the head of CCB’s col-
umn coiled on the reverse slope of the
last high ground before the Rhine, three
miles from the river, across from Neu-
wied. The drive to the Rhine was all but
finished in just over two and a half days.
The 4th Armored Division had driven
forty-four airline miles—much longer
by road—from the Kyll to a spot over-
looking the Rhine. The division took
5,000 prisoners, captured or destroyed
volumes of equipment, including 34
tanks and assault guns, and killed or
wounded 700 Germans. The division
itself lost, 29 men killed, 80 wounded,
2 missing.
44 Dyer, XII Corps, pp. 330 and 334.
206
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
I n the process, the armor had spread
havoc through whatever cohesion still
remained in the German defense west
of the Rhine and north of the Moselle.
Everywhere irregular columns of foot
troops interspersed with a confusion of
motor and horse-drawn vehicles toiled
toward the Rhine, hoping to find a
barge, a ferry, perhaps a bridge still
standing. Other Germans gave them-
selves up by the hundreds, particularly
in front of the V and VIII Corps, while
still others—some successfully, most not
—tried to slip behind the armored spear-
heads to escape southward across the
Moselle. Abandoned equipment, ve-
hicles, antitank guns, and field pieces,
many of them smoldering, dotted the
Eifel in macabre disarray.
Yet for all the striking success of the
drive, a chance to cap it with an even
more spectacular achievement remained.
Unknown to commanders and men of
the 4th Armored Division, a few miles
upstream from CCB’s position, midway
between Andernach and Koblenz, near
the village of Urmitz, a bridge across the
Rhine still stood, the Crown Prince Wil-
helm Railroad Bridge.
Although the 4th Armored Division
was under orders to seize any bridge
over the Rhine still standing, nobody
entertained any real expectation that a
bridge might be taken; and in line with
General Eisenhower’s plan for a main
effort across the Rhine by Montgomery’s
21 Army Group, the thoughts of senior
commanders in the Thi rd Army were
turning from the Rhine to the Moselle,
which General Patton hoped to cross in
order to trap the Germans in the West
Wall in front of the U.S. Seventh Army.
Aerial reconnaissance had already con-
firmed in any case that no bridge still
stood across the Rhine in the Third
Army’s zone. I n keeping with that re-
port and to avoid exposing tanks and
other vehicles to antitank fire from the
east bank of the Rhine and to the fire of
stationary antiaircraft guns ringing near-
by Koblenz, the men and vehicles of the
4th Armored Division stopped short of
the Rhine itself and remained under
cover on the reverse slope of the last
high ground short of the river.
The coming of daylight on 8 March
provoked something of a mystery. From
the high ground observers could see Ger-
mans retreating individually and in rag-
ged columns toward what maps showed
to be a railroad bridge near Urmitz. Be-
cause of haze and generally poor visi-
bility, they were unable to make out a
bridge, but presumably the Germans
were gravitating there in order somehow
to get across the Rhine. As the day wore
on, some prisoners and civilians said the
Germans had already destroyed several
spans of the railroad bridge while others
reported that the bridge still stood.
CCA had readied an attack to be
launched before daylight on the 9th to
drive to the bridge and seize it if it was
still intact when word came that General
Bradley had approved the Thi rd Army’s
turn southward across the Moselle. The
4th Armored Division was to change di-
rection and try to seize a bridge over
that river.
Soon after daylight on the 9th, after
CCA had abandoned its plan to drive for
the bridge at Urmitz, the Germans de-
molished it. Close investigation ex-
plained the conflicting reports the
Americans had received. The Germans
had earlier destroyed two spans of the
railroad bridge, but beneath the rails
they had hung a tier for vehicular traf-
OPERATI ON LUMBERJ ACK 207
fic. It was the makeshift bridge that they
destroyed early on the 9th.
Whether CCA could have taken the
bridge before the Germans blew it was
problematical, for by that time the Ger-
mans had become exceedingly wary of
bridges falling into Allied hands. That
was because of a happening a few miles
to the north in the zone of the First
Army's III Corps. There a 9th Armored
Division only recently oriented to make
its main effort to seize crossings of the
Ahr River had found a Rhine bridge in-
tact at Remagen.
CHAPTER XI
A Rhine Bridge at Remagen
Fortuitous events have a way some-
times of altering the most meticulous of
plans. That was what happened as the
Allied armies neared the Rhine.
I n seeking at the end of J anuary to
allay British concern about the future
course of Allied strategy, the Supreme
Commander had assured the British
Chiefs of Staff that a Rhine crossing in
the north would not have to be delayed
until the entire region west of the river
was free of Germans. 1 Field Marshal
Montgomery’s 21 Army Group, General
Eisenhower reiterated in a letter to
senior commanders on 20 February, was
to launch a massive thrust across the
Rhine north of the Ruhr even as the 6th
and 12th Army Groups completed their
operations to clear the west bank. Those
two army groups were to make secondary
thrusts across the Rhine later. 2
While designating the area north of
the Ruhr and the Frankfurt-Kassel cor-
ridor as the two main avenues of advance
deep into Germany, Eisenhower left
open the choice of specific Rhine cross-
ing sites to his army group commanders.
With an eye toward the Frankfurt-Kassel
corridor, the 12th Army Group’s plan-
ning staff in turn noted, in what eventu-
1 See above, ch. I; Pogue, The Supreme Com-
mand, pp. 413–14.
2 Ltr, Eisenhower to AGp CG’s, 20 Feb 45; SCAF
180, 201500 J an 45. Both in SHAEF SGS Post-OVER-
LORD Planning file, 381, III.
ally was to be the First Army’s zone,
two acceptable crossing sites. Both were
at points where the Rhine valley is
relatively broad; one in the north, be-
tween Cologne and Bonn, the other be-
tween Andernach and Koblenz. From
either site access would be fairly rapid
to the Ruhr-Frankfurt autobahn. and
thence to the Lahn River valley leading
into the Frankfurt-Kassel corridor.
Both had drawbacks, for both led into
the wooded hills and sharply compart-
mented terrain of a region known as the
Westerwald; but both avoided the worst
of that region. The most objectionable
crossing sites of all were in the vicinity
of Remagen; there the Westerwald is at
its most rugged, the roadnet is severely
limited, and the Rhine flows less through
a valley than a gorge. 3
As the First Army neared the Rhine,
General Bradley, the army group com-
mander, like Patton of the Third Army,
was looking less toward an immediate
Rhine crossing than toward the Thi rd
Army’s drive south to clear the Saar-
Palatinate. The role of Hodges’ First
Army in the coming operation was to
defend the line of the Rhine and mop
up pockets of resistance. Hodges also was
to be prepared to extend his units to
the southernmost of the two acceptable
3 12th AGp Opns Plan, 23 Feb 45; Rhineland
Opns Plan (draft), 27 Feb 45.
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN
209
crossing sites, that between Andernach
and Koblenz. 4
The Germans at Remagen
With Allied troops approaching the
Rhine, the order and efficiency normally
associated with things German had
become submerged in a maelstrom of
confused and contradictory command
channels. Nowhere was this more appar-
ent than at the railroad bridge on the
southern fringe of Remagen. There a
small miscellany of troops was operating
under a variety of commands. An army
officer, Capt. Willi Bratge, was the so-
called combat commander of the entire
Remagen area, ostensibly with the power
of over-all command but only in event
of emergency. Capt. Karl Friesenhahn,
an engineer officer, was the technical or
bridge commander. An antiaircraft of-
ficer, responsible to neither, commanded
antiaircraft troops in the vicinity. Men
of the Volkssturm were under Nazi party
officials. Furthermore—though no one at
Remagen yet knew it—another officer, a
major, was destined soon to come to the
town to supersede Bratge's command. 5
This confusion and contradiction was
repeated at almost every level of com-
mand all along the Rhine front. Much
4 12th AGp Outline Opn UNDERTONE, 7 Mar 45.
5 The German story is primarily from a study
by Ken Hechler, Seizure of the Remagen Bridge,
based on postwar German manuscripts and con-
temporary German records and prepared in OCMH
to complement this volume. A U.S. Army historian
in Europe during World War II. Mr. Hechler sub-
sequently wrote a comprehensive and authoritative
account of the Remagen action, The Bridge at
Remagen (New York: Ballantine Books, 1957). The
published work includes considerable material
developed by Mr. Hechler through postwar inter-
views in the United States and Germany, and has
also been used extensively in the preparation of
the first half of this chapter.
of it was attributable to the fact that
prior to March, responsibility for pro-
tecting the Rhine bridges had rested
entirely with the Wehrkreise (military
districts). Troops of the Wehrkreise
were responsible not to any army com-
mand but to the military arm of the
Nazi party, the Waffen-SS, and jealous
rivalry between the two services was
more the rule than the exception. As the
fighting front in early March fell back
from Roer to Rhine, responsibility was
supposed eopass from Wehrkreis to army
group and army, but in practice Wehr-
kreis commanders jealously held on to
their command prerogatives. Further-
more, antiaircraft troops answered nei-
ther to army headquarters nor Waffen-
SS but instead to the Luftwaffe; and
within the Army itself the Field Army
(Feldheer) vied for authority with the
Replacement Army (Ersatzheer) .
To complicate matters further, a num-
ber of recent command changes had had
an inevitable effect. On 1 February,
Wehrkreis VI had relinquished author-
ity for Remagen to Wehrkreis XII.
Then, on 1 March, came the shift that
took place at the height of Operation
GRENADE, exchange of zones between the
Fifth Panzer and Fifteenth Armies. A
few days later, as German troops fell
back from the Roer, General Puechler's
LXXI V Corps, gravitating on Bonn,
might have been expected to command
any bridgehead retained in the vicinity
of Bonn and Remagen; but instead,
Field Marshal Model at Army Group B
set up a separate command, the one un-
der General Botsch, commander of a
badly depleted volks grenadier division.
Botsch was to be responsible directly to
Zangen's Fifteenth Army.
As General Botsch tried to appraise the
210
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
situation, he ran head on into the differ-
ing views of his two superiors, Zangen
and Model, as to the course the Ameri-
cans presumably would follow—Model
with his belief that the main thrust
would be made on Bonn, Zangen with
the idea that the Americans would ex-
ploit the “spout of the funnel” leading
to Remagen. To be prepared for either
eventuality, Botsch wanted to place his
headquarters midway between the two
towns, but Model insisted that he locate
at or near Bonn. There Botsch ran afoul
of Bonn’s local defense commander,
Generalmajor Richard von Bothmer,
who raised questions as to just who was
in command at Bonn. Trying to resolve
the conflicts, Botsch spent much of the
first few days of March driving back and
forth between command posts of the
Fifteenth Army and Army Group B and
between Bonn and Remagen.
Although tiring and frustrating, these
peregrinations probably established Gen-
eral Botsch as the one man who under-
stood how the diverse command complex
worked. Driving up the Ahr River Val-
ley toward the Fifteenth Army’s head-
quarters early on 6 March, Botsch also
got a firsthand view of pandemonium in
the making as individuals and depleted
units retreated pell-mell toward the
Rhine. This personal knowledge of how
serious matters really were well might
have stood the Germans in good stead at
Remagen, but General Botsch had no
chance to use it.
For it was General Botsch to whom
Field Marshal Model turned in the after-
noon of 6 March to replace the captured
General von Rothkirch in command of
the LI I I Corps. 6 At 1700 Botsch left on
6 See above, ch. X.
the futile assignment of trying to resur-
rect the LI I I Corps without even being
accorded time to brief his successor, his
erstwhile disputant at Bonn, General von
Bothmer. Thus was lost to the Bonn-
Remagen defense the one commander
who, because of his knowledge of the
complicated command setup and the true
nature of German reverses west of the
Rhine, might have forestalled what was
about to happen at Remagen.
When the Fifteenth Army commander,
General von Zangen, learned of Botsch’s
shift, he told General Hitzfeld, com-
mander of the LXVII Corps, to send
someone to Remagen to check personally
on the situation there. A short while
later, at 0100 on 7 March, at the same
time Zangen ordered the LXVII Corps
to counterattack the spout of the funnel
leading to Remagen, he also told Hitz-
feld the Remagen bridgehead was then
the responsibility of the LXVII Corps.
With the bulk of his troops still thirty-
five miles from the Rhine, sorely beset
on all sides and under orders to launch
a counterattack that on the face of it was
impossible, and with American troops no
more than ten miles from Remagen,
Hitzfeld could do little. Summoning his
adjutant, Major Hans Scheller, he told
him to take eight men and a radio and
proceed to Remagen, there to assume
command, assemble as much strength as
possible, and establish a small bridge-
head. He specifically warned Scheller to
check immediately upon arrival as to the
technical features of the Remagen rail-
road bridge and to make sure the bridge
was prepared for demolition.
At approximately 0200 (7 March),
Major Scheller and his eight men started
for Remagen in two vehicles over wind-
ing, troop-choked, blacked-out Eifel
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN
211
roads. In the darkness, Scheller’s vehicle
quickly became separated from the other,
the one that carried the radio. Running
low on fuel, Scheller ordered his driver
to take a long detour to the south to seek
out a supply installation where he might
get gasoline. Shortly after 1100 on 7
March Major Scheller, still without a
radio, finally reached the Remagen
bridge. Sounds of battle already were
discernible in the distance.
The Hope for a Bridge
As the crucible neared for the Ger-
mans at Bonn and Remagen, probably
none of the American troops or their
commanders, who on 6 March began to
make great strides toward the Rhine,
entertained any genuine expectation of
seizing a bridge across the river intact.
(See Map IX.) Some units were under
formal orders to seize and hold any
bridge that still stood, but more as a
routine precaution than anything else.
Nobody had made any positive plans
about what to do should such a windfall
occur.
Back in February, as the First Army
drive began, some staff officers had toyed
with the idea that a Rhine bridge might
be taken. So remote appeared the chances
nevertheless that they went ahead with
a request to Allied air forces to continue
to bomb the bridges. Inclement weather
rather than plan had provided the
bridges respite from air attack during
the early days of March.
I n the Ninth Army, of course, a flurry
of hope for a Rhine bridge had devel-
oped on the first day of March, inviting
the attention of the Supreme Com-
mander himself. 7 Yet that hope had
7 Ibid.
proved short-lived; and despite the fact
that two attempts came heartbreakingly
close to success, the failures appeared to
confirm the general opinion that the
methodical Germans would see to it that
nobody got across the Rhine the easy
way.
The possibility still continued to in-
trigue commanders at every level. When
General Hodges visited headquarters of
the I I I Corps on 4 March, for example,
he and the corps commander, General
Millikin, spoke of the possibility of
taking the bridge at Remagen; but with
troops of the III Corps still a long way
from the Rhine, the discussion was brief.
The next day, with the 1st Division ad-
vancing on Bonn, the division com-
mander asked General Millikin what to
do in case the highway bridge at Bonn
could be seized. On 6 March Millikin
put the question to the First Army G–3,
Brig. Gen. Truman C. Thorson. The
bridges, Thorson ruled, should be cap-
tured wherever possible.
The G–3 of the III Corps, Colonel
Mewshaw, and an assistant had mused
over the likelihood of taking the Rem-
agen bridge with paratroops or a picked
band of Rangers; but so slight appeared
the chance that the discussion never
went beyond the operations section. I n
the directive issued to the 9th Armored
Division on 6 March, the order in regard
to the bridge at Remagen was to “cut by
fire”; the order also restricted artillery
fire against the bridge to time and
proximity fuze. Early in the evening of
6 March the III Corps also asked the air
officer at First Army to refrain from
bombing both the Bonn and Remagen
bridges.
That same evening, 6 March, General
Millikin talked by telephone with the
212 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
9th Armored Division commander, Gen-
eral Leonard. Among other things, Gen-
eral Leonard recalled later, Millikin had
something like this to say about the rail-
road bridge at Remagen: “Do you see
that little black strip of bridge at Rem-
agen? If you happen to get that, your
name will go down in glory.” 8
Yet despite all deliberation about the
bridge on 6 March, this was the same day
that Colonel Mewshaw confirmed for the
9th Armored Division G–3 that the di-
vision’s main effort should be aimed not
at the Rhine but at crossings of the Ahr.
Furthermore, neither the 9th Armored
Division nor that division’s Combat
Command B, the unit headed toward
Remagen, mentioned in its field order
taking the bridge at Remagen, although
General Leonard did note the possibility
orally as a matter of course to the CCB
commander.
For all the talk about getting a bridge
over the Rhine, the prospect remained
little more than a fancy.
Advance to the Rhine
On 6 March, as General Millikin
shifted the objectives of his divisions
southeastward to conform with the First
Army’s emphasis on crossings of the Ahr
River, the advance of the III Corps
picked up momentum. Despite time lost
to a determined German delaying force
at the road center of Rheinbach, the 9th
Armored Division’s Combat Command
A gained more than ten miles and
stopped at midnight less than two miles
from the Ahr. CCB reached Stadt Meck-
enheim, only eight miles from the Rhine.
8 Combat interview with General Leonard; see
also interview with General Millikin and his com-
ments on the draft MS of this volume.
A regiment of the 1st Division on the
corps north wing got within four miles
of the Rhine northwest of Bonn.
The next morning, 7 March, as troops
of the neighboring VI I Corps eliminated
the last resistance around Cologne, Gen-
eral Hodges transferred responsibility
for clearing Bonn to General Collins’s
corps, but with the responsibility went
the means, the 1st Division. At the same
time, infantry of the 9th Division con-
tinued to close in on Bad Godesberg, and
the 9th Armored’s CCA jumped the Ahr
at Bad Neuenahr, even though the Ger-
mans fought doggedly to hold open the
Ahr valley highway, the main route of
withdrawal for General Hitzfeld’s LXVII
Corps. Combat Command B meanwhile
sent one column southeastward to cross
the Ahr near its confluence with the
Rhine and another column toward Rem-
agen.
Built around the 27th Armored In-
fantry Battalion and the 14th Tank Bat-
talion (minus one company), the task
force heading for Remagen was under
the tank battalion commander, Lt. Col.
Leonard Engeman. To lead the column,
Colonel Engeman designated an infantry
platoon and a tank platoon, the latter
equipped with the new, experimental
T26 Pershing tank mounting a 90-mm.
gun.
Because bulldozers had to clear rubble
from the roads leading out of Stadt Meck-
enheim before the armored vehicles
could pass, Task Force Engeman got a
fairly late start on 7 March. The column
began to move only at 0820, but the Ger-
mans apparently gained nothing from
the delay. The first opposition—desul-
tory artillery and small arms fire—de-
veloped more than three miles from the
starting point. Another mile and a half
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN 213
to the east the column turned south, and
just before noon entered a big patch of
woods west of Remagen. Here and there
little clusters of Germans passed, hands
behind their heads, anxious to give them-
selves up to the first Americans who
would take the time to deal with them.
A few minutes before 1300, the leading
infantry platoon commander, 2d Lt.
Emmet J . Burrows, emerged from the
woods on a high bluff overlooking Rem-
agen. Below him, the view of the Rhine
gorge, even in the haze of 7 March, was
spectacular.
The railroad bridge just outside
Remagen, Lieutenant Burrows took in
at a glance, still stood.
The Crisis at the Bridge
Down at the bridge, confusion reigned,
much as it had all morning. Since soon
after daylight, frightened and disorgan-
ized groups of German troops had been
fleeing across the bridge, bringing with
them tales of the strength of American
forces pouring down the Ahr valley. The
wounded and the stragglers—tired,
dispirited men with heads bowed—
added stark punctuation to the accounts.
Lumbering supply vehicles, horse-drawn
artillery, quartermaster and other rear
echelon service units created mammoth
traffic jams. The jams would have been
worse had not a 4-day rush job to lay
planks across the railroad tracks at last
been finished the night before.
Built in 1916, the railroad bridge at
Remagen was named for the World War
I hero, Erich Ludendorff. Wide enough
for two train tracks, plus footpaths on
either side, the bridge had three sym-
metrical arches resting on four stone
piers. The over-all length was 1,069 feet.
At each end stood two stone towers, black
with grime, giving the bridge a fortress-
like appearance. Only a few yards from
the east end of the bridge, the railroad
tracks entered a tunnel through the
black rock of a clifflike hill, the Erpeler
Ley.
A year before the start of World War
II, the Germans had devised an elaborate
demolition scheme for the bridge that
included installing an electric fuze con-
nected with explosives by a cable encased
in thick steel pipe. Even if the electric
fuze failed to work, a primer cord might
be lit by hand to set off emergency
charges. Later, at the end of 1944, engi-
neers had made plans to blow a big ditch
across the Remagen end of the bridge to
forestall enemy tanks until the main
demolitions could be set off.
Long at his post, the engineer com-
mander at Remagen, Captain Friesen-
hahn, knew the demolition plan well,
but only a few days before 7 March an
order had arrived that complicated the
task. Because a bridge at Cologne had
been destroyed prematurely when an
American bomb set off the explosive
charges, OKW had ordered that demoli-
tions be put in place only when the
fighting front had come within eight
kilometers of a bridge; and igniters were
not to be attached until “demolition
seems to be unavoidable.” 9 I n addition,
both the order to prepare the explosives
and the demolition order itself were to
be issued in writing by the officer bear-
ing tactical responsibility for the area.
Until just before noon, 7 March, the
officer bearing tactical responsibility at
Remagen was Captain Bratge. I n a grow-
ing lather of excitement at the hegira of
9 A translation of this order appears as Annex 1
to 99th Div G–2 Periodic Rpt, 7 Mar 45.
214 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
German units and stragglers, Bratge early
in the morning telephoned headquarters
of Army Group B to ask for instructions,
but he was able to get through only to a
duty officer. The officer assured him that
Army Group B was not particularly
worried about the situation at Remagen;
Bonn appeared to be the most threatened
point.
For actual defense of Remagen and
the bridge, Captain Bratge had only
thirty-six men in his own company, plus
Friesenhahn’s handful of engineers and
a smattering of unreliable Volkssturm,
the latter technically not even under
Bratge’s command. The antiaircraft
troops that earlier had been set up on
the west bank had left in midmorning,
joining the retreating hordes crossing
the bridge.
General Botsch, Bratge knew, had
asked Field Marshal Model at Army
Group B for an entire division to defend
at Bonn and a reinforced regiment at
Remagen. That kind of strength, Model
had replied, simply was not available.
Although Model had promised some re-
inforcement, none had arrived. During
the evening of 6 March, Bratge had tried
to reach General Botsch’s headquarters
to ask for help, but had been unable to
get through. He had no way of knowing
that Botsch’s headquarters had pulled
out to go to Botsch’s new command, the
LIII Corps. An officer sent from General
von Bothmer’s headquarters at Bonn to
give Bratge this information had wan-
dered into American positions and been
captured.
At one point Captain Bratge managed
to corral the remnants of a battalion from
the 3d Parachute Division and persuaded
the officers to set up a defense to the
southwest to block an expected American
advance from the Ahr valley, but a short
while later these troops melted into the
fleeing columns and disappeared. When
an antiaircraft unit stationed atop the
Erpeler Ley withdrew, ostensibly under
orders to go to Koblenz, even that
strategic observation point was left un-
manned.
At 1115, Bratge looked up from the
unit orders he was checking at the bridge
to see a red-eyed major approaching. His
name, the major said, was Hans Scheller.
General Hitzfeld of the LXVII Corps,
he continued, had sent him to take com-
mand at Remagen.
Once Captain Bratge had assured him-
self that the major was, in fact, from- the
LXVII Corps and that his orders were
legitimate, he was pleased to relinquish
command. Together the two officers went
to check with the engineers on progress
of the demolitions, Although reports be-
gan to arrive that Americans had reached
the bluffs overlooking Remagen, Scheller
was reluctant to order the bridge de-
stroyed. An artillery captain, arriving at
the bridge, had insisted that his battalion
and its guns were following to cross the
bridge, and Major Scheller felt keenly
that combat units should not be penal-
ized by having the bridge blown in their
faces, particularly when they were bring-
ing with them precious items such as
artillery pieces.
On the hill above Remagen, Lieuten-
ant Burrows’s excitement at discovering
the bridge intact had brought his com-
pany commander, 1st Lt. Karl H. Ti m-
merman, hurrying to the vantage point
at the edge of the woods. Timmerman in
turn called for the task force com-
mander, Colonel Engeman.
The task force commander’s first reac-
A RHI NE BRI DGE AT REMAGEN 215
LIEUTENANT TIMMERMAN, first officer
to cross the Remagen Bridge.
tion was much like that of Burrows and
Timmerman, awe and surprise tempered
by a sharp desire to get artillery time fire
on the bridge immediately to hamper
the German retreat. Supporting artillery
nevertheless declined to fire, citing re-
ports, actually erroneous, that friendly
troops already were too close to the
bridge.
As Colonel Engeman directed Lieu-
tenant Timmerman to start his infantry
company moving cross-country into Rem-
agen with the platoon of Pershing tanks
to follow down the winding little road
from the bluff, CCB’s operations officer,
Maj. Ben Cothran, arrived on the scene.
Like the others before him, he got a
tingling shock of excitement as he
emerged from the woods and saw the
Rhine below him, the Remagen bridge
still standing.
“My God!” Cothran exclaimed. “I’ve
got to get the Old Man.” 10
He was referring to Brig. Gen. Wil-
liam M. Hoge, the CCB commander. I n
keeping with the theory that the other
column of the combat command heading
for the Ahr was making the main effort,
Hoge had followed closely behind that
thrust. I n response to Cothran’s radio
report, he tore cross-country to the
scene.
He might lose a battalion, General
Hoge mused, if his men crossed the
bridge before the Germans blew it. If
they destroyed it while his men were in
the act of crossing, he probably would
lose a platoon. On the other hand . . . .
Turning to Colonel Engeman, Hoge
said, “I want you to get to that bridge
as soon as possible.”
A short while later, at 1515, a message
arrived from CCB’s other column, which
earlier had found a bridge across the Ahr
River at Sinzig and had fought its way
across. I n Sinzig the men had discovered
a civilian who insisted that the Germans
at Remagen intended to blow the Luden-
dorff railroad bridge precisely at 1600.
Although the Germans in fact had no
specific time schedule, the civilian’s re-
port nevertheless spurred General Hoge
to urge Task Force Engeman to greater
speed in seizing the bridge at Remagen.
Having fought through the town of
Remagen against an occasional die-hard
German defender, Lieutenant Timmer-
man, his infantrymen, and the support-
ing platoon of tanks neared the bridge
around 1600. As they approached,
dodging occasional small arms and 20-
10 Direct quotations in this section are from
Hechler, The Bridge at Remagen.
216 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
mm. fire from the towers, a volcano of
rocks, dirt, and noise erupted. Captain
Friesenhahn on his own initiative, when
he saw the Americans appear, had ex-
ploded the charge designed to prevent
tanks from reaching the bridge. Timmer-
man and his men could see the Germans
on the other side of the river scurrying
to and fro, apparently getting ready to
blow the bridge itself.
Major Scheller and Captain Bratge
had already crossed the bridge to the
railroad tunnel. Friesenhahn hurried to
join them to get the order to destroy the
bridge, but concussion from a tank shell
knocked him to the floor of the bridge,
unconscious. Fifteen precious minutes
passed before he came to his senses. Still
dazed, he resumed his trek toward the
tunnel.
I n the railroad tunnel, pandemonium.
Terrified civilians cowering against the
walls, children wailing. Reluctant Volks-
sturm awaiting only a chance to sur-
render. Clusters of apprehensive soldiers,
some foreign workers, even some ani-
mals. White phosphorus shells from the
American tanks across the river creating
a heavy, eye-stinging smoke screen. Some
soldiers caught outside the tunnel
screaming as the phosphorus burned into
their flesh.
As Captain Bratge rushed outside to
survey the situation, he came upon Cap-
tain Friesenhahn and yelled at him to get
the order from Major Scheller to blow
the bridge. When Scheller gave his ap-
proval, Bratge insisted on waiting while
a lieutenant wrote down the exact timing
and wording of the order. Going ouside
again, he shouted to Friesenhahn to blow
the bridge. True to his instructions from
OKW, Friesenhahn insisted at first on
having the order in writing, then re-
lented in the interest of time.
Warning the civilians and soldiers to
take cover, Captain Friesenhahn turned
the key designed to activate the electric
circuit and set off the explosives. Nothing
happened. He turned it again. Still noth-
ing happened. He turned it a third time.
Again, no response.
Realizing that the circuit probably
was broken, Friesenhahn sought a repair
team to move onto the bridge; but as
machine gun and tank fire riddled the
ground, he saw that not enough time
remained to do the job that way. He
called for a volunteer to go onto the
bridge and ignite the primer cord by
hand. When a sergeant responded, Fries-
enhahn himself went with him as far as
the edge of the bridge and there waited
anxiously while the sergeant, crouching
to avoid shells and bullets, dashed onto
the bridge.
After what seemed an eternity, the
sergeant started back toward the east
bank at a run. Seemingly endless mo-
ments passed. Had the sergeant failed?
Would the primer cord ignite the charge?
At last, a sudden booming roar. Tim-
bers flew wildly into the air. The bridge
lifted as if to rise from its foundations.
Cowering against the explosion, Fries-
enhahn breathed a sigh of relief. The job
was done.
Yet when he looked up again, the
bridge was still there.
Lieutenant Timmerman had barely
finished the order to his men of Com-
pany A, 27th Armored Infantry Bat-
talion, to storm across the railroad bridge
when the explosion came. Some men
flung themselves to the ground for pro-
tection. Others watched in awe as the
A RHI NE BRI DGE AT REMAGEN 217
SERGEANT DRABIK, first American across the
Rhine.
big span lifted and a giant cloud of dust
and thick black smoke rose. Moments
later, like Friesenhahn and the Germans
on the east bank, they saw in incredible
surprise that the bridge still stood.
As the smoke and dust cleared, Ti m-
merman could discern that even though
the explosion had torn big holes in the
planking over the railroad tracks, the
footpaths on either side were intact. Sig-
naling his platoon leaders, he again or-
dered attack.
Bobbing and weaving, dashing from
the cover of one metal girder to another,
the men made their way onto the bridge.
Machine gun fire from the towers near
the east bank spattered among them, but
return fire from the riflemen themselves
and from the big tanks on the Remagen
side kept the German fire down. With a
few well-placed rounds, the Pershings
silenced German riflemen firing from a
half-submerged barge in the river.
Close behind the first riflemen went
two sergeants and a lieutenant from the
engineer detachment operating with
Task Force Engeman. Working swiftly,
the engineers cut every wire they could
find that might possibly lead to addi-
tional demolitions. They shot apart
heavy cables with their carbines.
Nearing the far end, several men di-
gressed to clean out the machine gunners
from the towers, while others continued
to the east bank. The first man to set
foot beyond the Rhine was an assistant
squad leader, Sgt. Alex Drabik. ( Map
3) Others were only moments behind,
including the first officer to cross, the
Company A commander, Lieutenant
Timmerman.
As Timmerman’s men spread out on
the east bank and one platoon began the
onerous task of climbing the precipitous
Erpeler Ley, Major Scheller in the rail-
road tunnel tried time after time to con-
tact his higher headquarters to report
that the bridge still stood. Failing that,
he mounted a bicycle and rode off to re-
port in person. As American troops ap-
peared at both ends of the tunnel, Cap-
tain Bratge and the other Germans in-
side, including the engineer officer, Cap-
tain Friesenhahn, surrendered.
Reaction to the Coup
Hardly had the first of Timmerman’s
men crossed the Rhine when Colonel
Engeman radioed the news to the CCB
commander, General Hoge. Because
Hoge in the meantime. had received
word to divert as much strength as pos-
sible from Remagen to reinforce the
H. C. Brewer, Jr
MAP 3
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN
219
bridgehead over the Ahr River at Sinzig,
he would be acting contrary to an order
still in effect if, instead, he reinforced
the Rhine crossing. He hesitated only
momentarily. Send the rest of the ar-
mored infantry battalion across imme-
diately, he told Engeman; then he drove
to his own command post for a meeting
with his division commander, General
Leonard.
General Leonard’s first reaction to
the news was mock concern against
Hoge’s upset of the plans. “But let’s
push it,” he added, “and then put it up
to Corps.” 11
At 1630 the 9th Armored Division
chief of staff telephoned the command
post of the III Corps.
“Hot damn!” cried a little sergeant as
he transferred the call to the chief of
staff and threw down the telephone.
“We got a bridge over the Rhine and
we’re crossing over!” 12
Although the corps commander, Gen-
eral Millikin, was away from the com-
mand post, his chief of staff, Col. J ames
H. Phillips, believed he knew how his
commander would react. Even before
trying to contact Millikin, he told the
9th Armored Division to exploit the
crossing.
When Phillips relayed the news to
headquarters of the First Army, General
Hodges ordered engineers and boats to
Remagen even before calling General
Bradley at 12th Army Group for ap-
proval.
“Hot dog, Courtney”—General Brad-
ley later recalled his own reaction—
11 Hechler, The Bridge at Remagen, p. 155.
12 Ibid. , p. viii.
“This will bust him wide open . . . .
Shove everything you can across it.” 13
General Eisenhower’s reaction was
much the same. Only the planners ap-
peared to question in any degree the
advisability of exploiting the coup. The
SHAEF G–3, General Bull, who hap-
pened to be at Bradley’s headquarters
when the news arrived, remarked that a
crossing at Remagen led no place and
that a diversion of strength to Remagen
would interfere with General Eisenhow-
er’s plan to make the main effort north
of the Ruhr. 14 Yet Bradley would have
none of it, and Eisenhower confirmed
that view.
“Well, Brad,” Eisenhower said, “we
expected to have . . . [four] divisions
tied up around Cologne and now those
are free. Go ahead and shove over at
least five divisions instantly, and any-
thing else that is necessary to make cer-
tain of our hold.” 15
Confirmed approval to exploit the
crossing reached the III Corps at 1845
on 7 March, and an hour and a half later
General Hodges relieved the corps of
the assignment of driving south across
the Ahr. General Millikin in the mean-
time had been making plans to motorize
the reserve regiments of his two infantry
divisions and rush them to the bridge.
Engineers, artillery, antiaircraft–units
of all types stirred in the early darkness
and headed for Remagen. All roads lead-
13 Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, p. 510.
14 I bi d. For General Bull’s view of this event, see
J ohn Toland, The Last 100 Days (New York:
Random House, 1966), pp. 214–15.
15 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe
(New York: Doubleday and Company, 1948), p.
380; Capt. Harry C. Butcher, USNR, My Three
Years wi t h Eisenhower (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1946). p. 768. Bradley, A Soldier’s Story,
page 514, says four divisions.
220 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
ing toward the little Rhine town soon
were thick with traffic. Before midnight
three heavy caliber artillery battalions
already were in position to fire in sup-
port of the little band of infantrymen
east of the Rhine.
At the bridge, the handful of engi-
neers from Task Force Engeman worked
unceasingly to repair the damage the
demolition had done to the flooring of
the bridge. Although considerable work
remained, the engineers shortly before
midnight signaled that tanks might try
to cross,
Nine Sherman tanks of the 14th Tank
Battalion crossed without incident, but
the first tank destroyer to try it foun-
dered in an unrepaired hole in the
planking. The vehicle appeared to teeter
precariously over the swirling waters far
below, but for almost five hours every
effort either to right the destroyer or to
dump it into the river failed. At 0530
(8 March) the vehicle was at last re-
moved.
I n the 27th Armored Infantry Batta-
lion’s minuscule bridgehead, the infan-
trymen and their limited tank support
spent a troubled night fighting off
platoon-size counterattacks along their
undermanned perimeter and expecting
the Germans at any moment to strike in
force. At dawn, when the disabled tank
destroyer was removed from the bridge,
the arrival of a battalion of the 78th
Division’s 310th Infantry relieved the
pressure. As the first vestiges of daylight
appeared, a battalion of the 9th Divi-
sion’s 47th Infantry also crossed into the
bridgehead.
I n the twenty-four hours following
seizure of the bridge, almost 8,000 men
crossed the Rhine, including two ar-
mored infantry battalions, a tank battal-
ion, a tank destroyer company, and a
platoon of armored engineers of the 9th
Armored Division; a regiment and two
additional battalions of the 78th Divi-
sion; a regiment and one additional bat-
talion of the 9th Division; and one and
a half batteries of antiaircraft artillery.
During that twenty-four hours and
into the next day, 9 March, General
Eisenhower’s initial jubilation over cap-
ture of the Ludendorff Bridge cooled
under the impact of admonitions from
his staff. Committed to a main effort
north of the Ruhr with the 21 Army
Group, he actually had few reserves to
spare for Remagen. Late on g March his
G–3, General Bull, informed General
Bradley that while the Supreme Com-
mander wanted the brideghead held
firmly and developed for an early ad-
vance southeastward, he did not want it
enlarged to a size greater than five divi-
sions could defend. Bradley in turn told
General Hodges to limit advances to a
thousand yards a day, just enough to
keep the enemy off balance and prevent
him from mining extensively around the
periphery. Once the troops reached the
autobahn, seven miles beyond the
Rhine, they were to hold in place until
General Eisenhower ordered expansion.
Thus, almost from the start, the forces
in the Remagen bridgehead were to op-
erate under wraps that would not be re-
moved for more than a fortnight.
On the German Side
Like the Americans, the Germans had
no plan ready to cope with the situation
at Remagen. Indeed, the fact that the
U.S. Ninth Army had made no immediate
move to jump the Rhine had lulled
many German commanders into the be-
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN 221
lief that the Allies would pause to mop
up and regroup before trying to cross;
and that had engendered a measure of
apathy in regard to the possibility of
losing a bridge.
Nor did the Germans have any reserves
close at hand to throw quickly against the
little Remagen bridgehead. Most com-
bat units near Remagen were still on the
west bank, struggling to escape Ameri-
can pincers and get back somehow across
the Rhine. Most of the service troops in
the Remagen area were busy ferrying the
depleted combat forces.
As the news about the Ludendorff
Bridge spread slowly through a disor-
ganized German command, officers near
Remagen assembled about a hundred
engineers and antiaircraft troops and
fought through the night of the 7th, but
to little avail. One group of Germans did
reach the bridge itself with explosives in
hand, but men of the 78th Division cap-
tured them before they could do any
damage.
Because of the fluid tactical situation,
many higher German commanders were
on the move during the night of 7 March
and failed for hours to learn about loss
of the bridge. Field Marshal von Rund-
stedt’s headquarters got the word earlier
than most through a chance conversation
between the operations officer and local
commanders. Nobody could find the
Army Group B commander, Field Mar-
shal Model, in whose sector the debacle
had occurred. Model himself was at “the
front,” his headquarters on the move.
When OB WEST finally did establish
contact with Army Group B, Model still
was away. So preoccupied was the army
group staff with trying to save divisions
of the LXVI and LXVII Corps, threat-
ened with entrapment by the 4th Ar-
mored Division’s sweep to the Rhine
above Andernach, that the headquarters
at first reacted apathetically. When
Model returned during the morning of
8 March, he ordered the 11th Panzer
Division, which by that time was prepar-
ing to recross the Rhine at Bonn to make
the projected counterattack southwest
toward Rheinbach, to sweep the Ameri-
cans into the river and blow the Luden-
dorff Bridge.
The 11th Panzer Division had about
4,000 men, 25 tanks, and 18 artillery
pieces, a force that well might have
struck a telling blow had it been avail-
able soon after the first Americans
crossed the Rhine. Yet the panzer- di-
vision, assembled near Duesseldorf, had
somehow to obtain gasoline for its ve-
hicles and thread a way along roads al-
ready jammed with traffic and under
attack from Allied planes. Not until two
days later, 10 March, were even the first
contingents of the division to get into
action against the bridgehead. 16 Field
Marshal Model meanwhile designated a
single commander to co-ordinate all
counteraction at Remagen, General Bay-
erlein, erstwhile commander of Corps
Bayerlein, who had fallen back before
the drive of the VII Corps on Cologne.
Bayerlein on 9 March took command of
a heterogeneous collection of service
troops opposite Remagen with the prom-
ise of the incoming 11th Panzer Division,
some 300 men and 15 tanks masquerad-
ing under the name of the once-great
Panzer Lehr Division, another 600 men
and 15 tanks under the seemingly im-
perishable 9th Panzer Division, and a
company-size remnant of the 106th Pan-
zer Brigade with 5 tanks. Once all troops
16 MS # B–590, 11t h Panzer Division, 6–21 March
1945 (Generalleutnant Wend von Wietersheim).
222
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
arrived, including relatively strong ar-
tillery units, Bayerlein was to have ap-
proximately 10,000 men grouped under
the headquarters staff of the LI I I Corps.
When Model visited Bayerlein’s new
headquarters on 9 March, Bayerlein out-
lined a plan to attack at dusk on 10
March against the center of the bridge-
head, then roll up the flanks. The main
component was to be the Kampfgruppe
of the Panzer Lehr Division; but when
the bulk of that force failed to arrive on
time, Model vetoed the entire plan. 17
Model’s first concern was to draw some
kind of cordon around the bridgehead,
but in the process he let pass the possi-
bility of counterattacking before the
Americans became too strong to be
evicted. As American attacks continued,
the incoming 11th Panzer Division also
became drawn into the defensive cordon
and could launch only small, localized
counterattacks.
As for the Commander in Chief West,
Field Marshal von Rundstedt, the loss of
the Remagen bridge was the excuse Hit-
ler needed to relieve the old soldier of
his command. Already upset by Rund-
stedt’s failure to hold west of the Rhine,
Hitler on 8 March summoned from Italy
Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring,
longtime Commander in Chief South
( OB SUED) . The next day Hitler told
Kesselring to take charge in the west. I n
the process he emphasized that the
Remagen bridgehead had to be wiped
out in order to gain time for refitting and
reorganizing the exhausted German
units behind the moat of the Rhine. Kes-
selring left Berlin for his unenviable
17 MSS # A–970, Remagen Bridgehead— LIII
Corps (Generalleutnant Frtiz Bayerlein) and # B–
590 (Wietersheim).
FIELD MARSHAL KESSELRING
assignment the night of 9 March, the
relief. to be effective the next day. 18
Build-up and Command Problems
The First Army commander, General
Hodges, had made various organizational
shifts to enable the III Corps to exploit
the Rhine crossing. During the night of
7 March, he attached a second armored
division, the 7th, to Millikin’s corps,
along with an antiaircraft battalion, an
engineer treadway bridge company, and
an amphibious truck company. He also
relieved the 78th Division of its offen-
sive mission with the V Corps south of
the Ahr River and ordered the division
to join its reserve regiment at Remagen.
18 Kesselring’s personal account of his steward-
ship may be found in his memoirs, A Soldier‘s
Record (New York: William Morrow and Com-
pany, 1954). pp. 283ff.
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN 223
Finding troops to send to Remagen
was easier than expected because resist-
ance west of the Rhine collapsed so rap-
idly. A final surge by the Thi rd Army’s
late-running 11th Armored Division to
reach the Rhine at Brohl on 8 March
took all semblance of organization out
of the defense south of the Ahr, and the
next day the 2d Division of the V Corps
swept to the Rhine to link with the ar-
mor. On those two days and the next,
resistance was so indifferent that the
corps artillery could find no targets. It
was much the same in the sector of the
VII Corps, where on 9 March the 1st
Division eliminated the last defenders
from the university city of Bonn, there
to discover the Rhine bridge destroyed.
The German commander in Bonn, Gen-
eral von Bothmer, escaped to the east
bank of the Rhine, only to be called be-
fore a court-martial that stripped him of
his rank, whereupon Bothmer shot him-
self. 19
For all the speed of the American
thrusts, thousands of Germans made
their way across the Rhine, mostly on
ferries on in small river craft. I n terms
of prisoners taken, the pincers move-
ment south of the Ahr was disappoint-
ing—the V Corps, for example, in its
drive to the Rhine, captured just over
5,000 Germans, while the VII Corps
between the Erft and the Rhine had
been taking over 13,000. 20 Yet those Ger-
mans who escaped did so in disarray,
unit integrity in most cases gone; and
behind them they left small mountains
of equipment, ammunition, weapons,
and vehicles. While most ranking com-
manders got across the Rhine, two—
19 MS # C–020 (Schramm).
20 V Corps Operations in the ETO, p. 401; VII
Corps AAR, Mar 45.
Generalleutnant Richard Schimpf, com-
mander of the 3d Parachute Division,
and Generalmajor Ludwig Heilmann,
commander of the 5th Parachute Divi-
sion —failed to make it. Both were cap-
tured, as was General Rothkirch earlier.
At Remagen and on the roads leading
to the town, congestion was a serious
problem. The ancient wall-encircled
town of Zuelpich and bomb-devastated
Euskirchen particularly were bottle-
necks, but the worst difficulty was at the
Ludendorff Bridge itself. Although mod-
erately heavy German artillery fire fell
almost constantly around the bridge, it
failed to halt traffic for any period
longer than a quarter-hour. The slow
pace imposed on vehicles by the condi-
tion of the bridge and by congestion on
the east bank still served to back up
traffic for several miles outside Re-
magen.
Almost from the start, the First Ar-
my’s General Hodges was dissatisfied
with the way his corps commander, Gen-
eral Millikin, handled the problems both
at the bridge and in the bridgehead.
Hodges and some members of his staff
complained long and vocally that con-
trol was poor on both sides of the river
and that accurate information on troop
dispositions beyond the Rhine was lack-
ing. Even after the order passed down
from General Eisenhower on 9 March
to limit advances within the bridgehead,
Hodges continued to chafe at what he
considered slow, uninspired attacks that
failed to push far enough east to relieve
the bridge site of observed artillery fire.
General Millikin on 9 March placed
the commander of the 9th Armored Di-
vision, General Leonard, in specific con-
trol of all activity in the vicinity of the
bridge and put all troops east of the
224
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
LUDENDORFF RAILROAD BRIDGE AT REMAGEN
river under the 9th Infantry Division
commander, General Craig; but Hodges
continued to complain. Unaccustomed
to working with Millikin, whose III
Corps in months past had served under
the Thi rd Army, Hodges and his staff
made no attempt “to hide the fact that
everybody here wishes the bridgehead
command had fallen to General Col-
lins.” 21
Millikin’s problems, on the other
hand, were myriad. Although he himself
21 Sylvan Diary, entry of 9 Mar 45; see also tele-
phone messages in III Corps G–3 J nl file, 8–9 Mar
45.
was frequently at the bridge, getting ac-
curate, timely information from the east
bank was a frustrating chore. I n the
first days of an impromptu operation of
this sort, there were bound to be short-
ages of matériel and of specialized
troops. One of these was in Signal Corps
units. So frequently did vehicles and ar-
tillery cut telephone lines laid across
the railroad bridge and so often did de-
bris and a swift current break wires
strung in the river that telephone com-
munications with the east bank were
out about as much as they were in.
Neither liaison officers, who often were
A RHINE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN
225
delayed in threading their way back
across the congested bridge, nor radio
communications could solve the prob-
lem entirely.
Committing incoming infantry units
on the far bank was a piecemeal propo-
sition, geared both to when units ar-
rived and to where the most pressing
need existed at the time. Not even the
various components of all regiments
were able to stay together, and splitting
the parts of divisions was the rule. This
heightened problems of control that
haste, improvisation, and the sharply
compartmented terrain had already
made bad enough.
To General Millikin, the way to over-
come his problems was not to make bold
thrusts here and there but to expand the
entire periphery of the bridgehead sys-
tematically. On 8 March he ordered a
controlled advance to three successive
phase lines: the first—two and a half
miles north and south of the Ludendorff
Bridge and about two miles deep—de-
signed to free the bridge site from small
arms fire; the second designed to elimi-
nate observed artillery fire; and the
third—extending as far north as Bonn,
as far south as Andernach, and east well
beyond the autobahn—designed to free
the bridge site of all shelling. 22
As night fell on 10 March, the 78th
Division’s 311th Infantry had advanced
beyond the first phase line and taken
Honnef, almost five miles north of the
bridge, Progress was marked too in the
south, where the 27th Armored Infantry
Battalion captured a village beyond the
22 III Corps Opnl Dir 10, 8 Mar 45; General
Millikin’s comments on the draft MS of this vol-
ume.
town of Linz, not quite three miles
southeast of the bridge.
I n the high wooded hills east of the
bridge progress was slower. There the
9th Division’s 60th Infantry had been
able to go less than a mile from the
river. German tenacity there could be
explained in part by the rugged terrain
but owed much also to relatively strong
artillery support. Since artillery units
had retreated across the Rhine ahead of
the infantry and tanks, a number of
them had reached the east bank in fair
shape, particularly those a little farther
north where advance of the VII Corps
had shoved them across the Rhine be-
fore the III Corps came up to the river
at Remagen. A volks artillery corps
from the north was committed early to
the fighting east of Remagen, and other
artillery units were on the way. Soon
the Germans would be employing
against the bridgehead some fifty 105-
mm. barrels, another fifty 150-mm. how-
itzers, and close to a dozen 210-mm.
pieces. The shortage of ammunition
rather than guns was the more serious
problem. 23
Although the extent of progress belied
it, General Millikin intended the east-
ward and southeastward thrusts to be his
main effort, in keeping with the theory
—advanced by both Bradley and Eisen-
hower—that the troops in the bridge-
head could best serve the over-all scheme
by driving toward the Lahn River val-
ley and the Frankfurt-Kassel corridor.
At the same time, Millikin reasoned,
such thrusts would also more quickly
eliminate German observation on the
bridge. General Hodges for his part
wanted the III Corps first to push north-
23 MS # B–547 (Genegalleutnant Eduard Metz).
226 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
ward in order to clear crossing sites for
General Collins’s VII Corps. Yet he
failed to make this clear to Millikin un-
til the fourth day, 11 March, when for
the first time he crossed the Rhine into
the bridgehead. Even then he issued no
specific order, although he did make
several allusions to the north and
strongly suggested that the main effort
be made in that direction. 24
The suggestion was enough for Milli-
kin. He promptly put emphasis behind
the 78th Division’s thrust by narrowing
the division’s sector and shifting the bulk
of the 9th Division to the northeast. On
the following day, 12 March, with the
arrival of most of the 99th Infantry Di-
vision in the bridgehead to take over the
southern and southeastern portions of
the periphery, he ordered all units
shifted back to their parent divisions; but
by that time, the chance for a really
spectacular drive northward had passed.
Indications that the going might be-
come more difficult developed as early
as 11 March, when contingents of the
11th Panzer Division counterattacked at
Honnef, temporarily regaining the
town. 25 On the same day a second volks
artillery corps reached the front. On 13
March, as remnants of the 340th Volks
Grenadier Division arrived, the German
commander, General Bayerlein, put
them into the line east of Honnef. Later
in the day the 130th Infantry Regiment,
a well-equipped and comparatively fresh
separate unit of 2,000 men, arrived from
the Netherlands. Although Bayerlein
wanted to counterattack immediately
24 Combat interview with Col Phillips, CofS IIII
Corps; Sylvan Diary, entry of 11 Mar 45; Gen
Millikin’s comments on the draft MS of this vol-
ume.
25 MSS # A–970 (Bayerlein) and # B–590
(Wietersheim).
with the 130th Infantry reinforced by
tanks, Field Marshal Model ordered that
the regiment be used to bring the 340th
Volks Grenadier Division back to rea-
sonable strength. Thus, the 130th too
went into the defensive line. 26
Unlike Bayerlein, Model believed that
no decisive counterattack could be
launched until sufficient infantry rein-
forcement arrived to release the armored
units from the line. I n this he was sup-
ported by General von Zangen, under
whose Fifteenth Army Bayerlein’s forces
opposing the bridgehead operated. Yet
in disagreement with Zangen, Model in-
sisted that the strongest line be built in
the north to thwart what he remained
convinced would be the Americans’ ma-
jor thrust. At a meeting on 11 March
with Model and the new Commander in
Chief West, Field Marshal Kesselring,
Zangen protested this line of thought.
Field Marshal Kesselring for his part
apparently sanctioned it, for Model’s
view prevailed. 27
With disapproval of the plan to use
the 130th Infantry offensively, General
Bayerlein saw his last hope for an effec-
tive counterattack pass. To Bayerlein,
there was no chance of assembling suf-
ficient forces to drive the Americans into
the Rhine once they had gained addi-
tional time to reinforce their bridge-
head. 28 On the other hand, Model’s
decision did serve to slow operations in
the sector where the American com-
mander, General Millikin, now planned,
temporarily, his main effort. Thus Gen-
eral Hodges’ dissatisfaction with Milli-
26 See criticisms in MS # B–829 (General der
Infanterie Gustav von Zangen).
27 MSS # B–829 (Zangen) and # B–101 (General
der Infanterie Otto Hitzfeld).
28 MS # A–970 (Bayerlein).
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN 227
kin’s handling of the bridgehead fight
continued.
At the bridge site, concentrated efforts
were made from the start toward supple-
menting the Ludendorff railroad bridge.
One of the first units to arrive for the
purpose was Naval Unit No. 1, a U.S.
Navy force with twenty-four LCVP’s
(landing craft, vehicle and personnel)
that had been attached to the First Army
for some months in anticipation of the
Rhine crossings. 29 Also quick to arrive
was an engineer unit of the III Corps,
the 86th Engineer Heavy Ponton Bat-
talion, with orders to operate three fer-
ries, one well north of the Ludendorff
Bridge, one close to the bridge at Rem-
agen, and the third well south of the
bridge. As assembled by the engineers,
the rafts were made of five pontons cov-
ered with wooden flooring. Used as free
ferries propelled by 22-hp. outboard
motors, the craft began to operate as
early as the morning of 9 March. The
ferries and LCVP’s were augmented on
14 March by dukws (2½-ton amphibious
trucks) of the 8 19th Amphibious Truck
Company. 30
Survey teams of the 1111th and 1159th
Engineer Combat Groups, scheduled to
build tactical bridges across the Rhine,
reached Remagen during the morning
of 8 March. Because of road priorities
granted at first to infantry units and
engineers who were to operate ferries,
the bridging units themselves began to
28 LCVP’s could carry thirty-six soldiers with full
combat equipment, vehicles up to the size of ¾-ton
ambulances or trucks, or four tons of cargo. See
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Invasion of France and
Germany (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1957), pp. 317–23.
30 For the engineer story, see AAR’s of the engi-
neer units, III Corps Engineer War Diary, and
combat interviews with engineer officers.
move to the river only during the night
of 9 March. Construction of the first
bridge, a treadway from Remagen to
Erpel, began early on 10 March.
Although jammed roads leading to
Remagen continued to hamper bridge
construction, the most serious delays de-
rived from German artillery fire and air
attacks. During 8 and 9 March, the Ger-
mans maintained an average rate of one
shell every two minutes in the vicinity
of the bridge sites, but by 10 March,
their fire had fallen off to four or five
rounds per hour. 31 Artillery fire during
the course of construction of the Rem-
agen treadway bridge destroyed four
cranes, two Brockway trucks, two ai r
compressors, three dump trucks, and
thirty-two floats. The treadway, never-
theless, was opened for limited traffic at
0700, 11 March, and for full use in late
afternoon. A heavy ponton upstream at
Linz was opened at midnight on the
11th. On the 13th engineers closed the
Ludendorff Bridge in order to repair
damage caused by Captain Friesenhahn’s
emergency demolition.
Unlike the artillery fire, German air
attacks were more annoying than de-
structive. A strong cordon of defenses
around the bridge manned by the 16th
Antiaircraft Artillery Group, antiaircraft
battalions borrowed from the divisions
of the III Corps, and additional units
transferred from the V Corps sharply
interfered with German accuracy. On 12
March, at the height of air attacks against
the bridge, sixteen 90-mm. gun batteries
were emplaced on the west bank of the
Rhine and twenty-five batteries of auto-
matic antiaircraft weapons were almost
equally divided between the two banks,
31 Sylvan Diary, entries of 8–10 Mar 45; III Corps
AAR, Mar 45.
228
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
probably the most intensive tactical
grouping of antiaircraft weapons in the
European theater during the course of
the war. 32
The Luftwaffe first struck at the rail-
road bridge on the morning after Lieu-
tenant Timmerman and his intrepid
little band had crossed. Although low
overcast interfered with flight, the Ger-
mans made ten sweeps with a total of ten
planes, most of them Stuka dive bomb-
ers. None inflicted any damage on the
bridge, and antiaircraft units claimed
eight destroyed. 33
Exhortation to the Luftwaffe to strike
and strike again was one of the few
immediate steps Field Marshal Kessel-
ring could take toward eliminating the
Ludendorff Bridge after he assumed
command in the west on 10 March. He
conferred that day with senior Luftwaffe
commanders, urging them to knock out
the bridge and any auxiliary bridges the
Americans might construct.
From 8 through 16 March, the Luft-
waffe tried. The German planes struck
at the railroad bridge, at the ferries, and
at the tactical bridges, but with no suc-
cess. Whenever the weather allowed,
American planes flying cover over the
bridgehead interfered; even when the
German pilots got through the fighter
screen, they ran into a dense curtain of
antiaircraft fire. When they tried a
stratagem of sending slow bombers in
the lead to draw the antiaircraft fire,
then following with speedy jet fighters,
the Americans countered by withholding
part of their fire until the jets appeared.
32 A convenient summary of the antiaircraft de-
fense may be found in 16th AAA Gp AAR, Anti-
aircraft Artillery Defense of Rhine Bridges, 17 Mar
45.
33 III Corps AAR, Mar 45.
American antiaircraft units estimated
that during the nine days they destroyed
109 planes and probably eliminated 36
others out of a total of 367 that attacked.
By three other means the Germans
tried to destroy the railroad bridge. Soon
after losing the bridge, they brought up a
tank-mounted 540-mm. piece called the
Karl Howitzer. The weapon itself
weighed 132 tons and fired a projectile
of 4,400 pounds, but after only a few
rounds that did no damage except to
random houses, the weapon had to be
evacuated for repairs. From 12 through
17 March a rocket unit with weapons
emplaced in the Netherlands fired eleven
supersonic V–2's in the direction of the
bridge, the first and only tactical use of
either of the so-called German V-weapons
( Vergeltungswaffen, for vengeance) dur-
ing World War II. One rocket hit a
house 300 yards east of the bridge, killing
three American soldiers and wounding
fifteen. That was the only damage. Three
landed in the river not far from the
bridge, five others west of the bridge,
and one near Cologne; one was never
located. 34
The night of 16 March, the Germans
tried a third method—seven underwater
swimmers in special rubber suits and
carrying packages of plastic explosive
compound—but from the first the
Americans had anticipated such a gam-
bit. During the first few days of the
bridgehead, before nets could be strung
across the river, they dropped demolition
charges to discourage enemy swimmers
34 SHAEF Air Defense Division, Summary of
Casualties and Damage from V-Weapon Attack,
Report for the Week Ending 19 March 1945;
British War Office, The German Long-Range
Rocket Programme, 1930–1945, MIA 4/14, 30 Oct
45, copy in OCMH; Royce L. Thompson, Military
Impact of the German V-Weapons, MS in OCMH.
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN 229
and stationed riflemen at intervals along
the railroad bridge to fire at suspicious
objects. Later, with nets in place, they
stationed tanks equipped with search-
lights along the river.
When the German swimmers first tried
to reach the bridge, American artillery
fire discouraged them from entering the
water. On the next night, the 17th, they
moved not against the railroad bridge
but against tactical ponton bridges, only
to be spotted by the American search-
lights. Blinded by the lights, the seven
Germans, one by one, surrendered.
While these events occurred along the
Rhine, gains in the bridgehead con-
tinued to be steady but unspectacular,
and General Hodges remained displeased
with General Millikin’s conduct of the
battle. On 15 March Hodges discussed
with the 12th Army Group commander,
General Bradley, the possibility of re-
lieving Millikin. “Mind you,” Hodges
remarked, “I have only the greatest ad-
miration and respect for the GIs doing
the fighting out there, but I think they
have had bad leadership in this bridge-
head battle.” 35 Bradley left Hodges’
headquarters agreeing to look for a re-
placement for the III Corps commander.
Two days later General Van Fleet,
former commander of the 90th Division,
arrived at Hodges’ headquarters to take
Millikin’s place. Shortly before 1500,
Hodges telephoned Millikin.
“I have some bad news for you,”
Hodges said, then went on to inform him
of his relief.
The III Corps commander waited un-
til Hodges had finished.
“Sir,” he said finally, “I have some bad
35 Sylvan Diary, entry of 15 Mar 45.
GENERAL VAN FLEET. (Photograph
t aken in 1951.)
news for you too. The railroad bridge
has just collapsed.” 36
The End of the Bridge
I t happened during a period of rela-
tive quiet. No German planes were
around, and German artillery was silent.
About 200 American engineers with
their equipment were working on the
bridge.
The first indication that anything was
wrong was a sharp report like the crack
of a rifle. Then another. The deck of
the bridge began to tremble. The entire
deck vibrated and swayed. Dust rose
from the planking. It was every man for
himself.
36 Ibid. , entry of 17 Mar 45.
230 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
With a grinding roar of tearing steel,
the Ludendorff railroad bridge slipped,
sagged, and with a convulsive twist
plunged into the Rhine. Of those work-
ing on the bridge at the time, 93 were
injured, 28 killed.
The collapse of the bridge could be
attributed to no one specific factor but
rather to a combination of things, some
even antedating the emergency demoli-
tion. As far back as 1940 Allied planes
had launched sporadic attacks against the
bridge, and in late 1944 had damaged it
to such an extent that it was unservice-
able for fifteen days. Then came the
heavy planking to convert the bridge for
vehicles; the assault by the 27th Armored
Infantry Battalion’s Company A and the
fire of the big Pershing tanks that ac-
companied it; Friesenhahn’s emergency
demolition; the drumbeat of hundreds
of infantry feet; the heavy tread of tanks
and other vehicles; the pounding of Ger-
man artillery; the vibrations from Ger-
man bombs, from American antiaircraft
pieces and big 8-inch howitzers emplaced
nearby, from the near misses of the V–
2’s; and then the weight of heavy engi-
neer equipment as the Americans tried
to repair the bridge. All had to be borne
by the downstream truss alone after
Friesenhahn’s demolition so damaged the
upstream truss that it was useless. I n the
end, it was too much for one weakened
truss. 37
More speculative is the explanation of
why the German demolitions failed, in
the first place, to destroy the Ludendorff
Bridge. Sabotage, for example, either by
a German soldier or a foreign laborer,
37 Combat interview with Lt Col Clayton A. Rust,
CO 276th Engineer Combat Bn.
hardly could be ruled out. 38 Since the
electric circuit designed to set off the
main demolitions had been tested shortly
before it was to be used and was in order,
something happened to the circuit
shortly before Friesenhahn turned the
key. Most Germans familiar with the
events believed that a lucky hit from an
American shell—probably fired by a
tank—severed the main cable leading to
the demolitions. The Americans them-
selves conducted no immediate post-
mortem, and once the bridge had fallen
into the Rhine, the evidence was gone.
Whether the reason could be ascer-
tained or not, Hitler at the time was
determined to find scapegoats to pay for
the debacle. He convened a special 3-man
military tribunal that acted with little
regard for legal niceties. 39 The tribunal
condemned to death two majors who had
commanded engineer troops in the vi-
cinity of the bridge, Herbert Strobe1 and
August Kraft; a lieutenant of Flakartil-
lerie, Karl Heinz Peters; the major sent
by General Hitzfeld of the LXVII Corps
to assume tactical command at the
bridge, Hans Scheller; and the previous
tactical commander, Captain Bratge.
The engineer in charge of demolitions,
Captain Friesenhahn, who had been cap-
tured by the Americans, was acquitted
in absentia. Because Bratge too was an
American prisoner, he survived. The
other four died before firing squads.
Expansion of the Bridgehead
The loss of the Ludendorff Bridge had
no effect on operations in the Remagen
bridgehead. The bridge had been closed
38 Hechler, in The Bridge at Remagen, pages
212–20, analyzes the various speculations in detail.
39 Ibid., pp. 192–212.
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN
231
THE RHINE AT THE REMAGEN BRIDGE SITE. (Photograph taken in 1948.)
for repairs since 13 March, and the forces
in the bridgehead already were accus-
tomed to working without it. General
Hodges nevertheless quickly authorized
construction of a floating Bailey bridge
about a mile downstream from Remagen.
I n a remarkable engineering feat, the
Bailey bridge was completed in just un-
der forty-eight hours and opened for
traffic on 20 March. 40
One reason for a new bridge was the
presence of a new force in the Remagen
40 III Corps Engineer War Diary, 120600 Mar 45.
bridgehead. Beginning early on 15
March, the 1st Division of General Col-
lins's VII Corps had crossed the Rhine
over the I I I Corps bridges and on ferries,
and at noon the next day, Collins as-
sumed responsibility for the northern
portion of the bridgehead. I n the process,
Collins's corps absorbed the 78th Di-
vision.
The specific role the Supreme Com-
mander, General Eisenhower, intended
the Remagen bridgehead to play in fu-
ture operations meanwhile had been
made clear on 13 March. The bridge-
232 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
head, Eisenhower directed, was to be
used to draw enemy units from the Ruhr
area opposite the 21 Army Group and
from the 6th Army Group’s Rhine cross-
ing sites in the south. Although an ex-
ploitation eventually might be made in
the direction of Frankfurt, a minimum
of ten First Army divisions had to be
reserved for the time being as a possible
“follow-up force” for the 21 Army
Group, still designated to make the Al-
lied main effort . 41
From this restriction, it was obvious
that Eisenhower had no wish to see the
bridgehead expanded appreciably. Gen-
eral Bradley in turn told the First Army
to advance no farther than a line ap-
proximately twenty-five miles wide at the
base along the Rhine and ten miles deep,
in effect, a slight expansion of the third
phase line that the III Corps commander,
General Millikin, earlier had imposed. 42
The First Army’s General Hodges dis-
agreed, though to no avail. Like almost
everybody at First Army headquarters,
Hodges was piqued about the elaborate
preparations Field Marshal Montgomery
was making for his 21 Army Group’s
crossing of the Rhine and the emphasis
General Eisenhower continued to place
on that crossing when, in Hodges’ view,
a breakout from the Remagen bridge-
head could have been staged at will.
With evident amusement he listened to
the story-probably apocryphal—of how
the 21 Army Group on 7 March had
asked Supreme Headquarters to stage a
diversion before Montgomery jumped
the Rhine and how, five minutes later,
SHAEF passed the word that the First
41 SCAF 232, SHAEF to Bradley, 13 Mar 45, in
12th AGp Military Objectives, 371.3, vol. VI. Quote
is from Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, p. 517.
42 12th AGp Ltr of Instrs No. 17, 13 Mar 45.
Army had already staged a diversion; the
First Army had crossed the Rhine. 43
While advances in the Remagen
bridgehead continued to average only
about a thousand yards a day, Hodges
was convinced this was less a reflecti ion
of German strength than of timidity in
American attacks. By 17 March the Ger-
man order of battle opposite the bridge-
head sounded impressive on paper—in
addition to those units early committed,
the Germans had brought in contingents
of the 26th, 62d, 272d, 277th, and 326th
Volks Grenadier Divisions; the 3d and
5th Parachute Divisions; and the 3d Pan-
zer Grenadier Division—but in no case
were these real divisions. All were -bat-
talion-size Kampfgruppen or else had
been fleshed out to something more than
regimental strength with inexperienced
replacements culled from various Wehr-
kreise up and down the Rhine. 44 I n most
cases the Americans characterized the re-
sistance as “moderate to light.’’ Although
the German defense appeared to be “or-
derly,” the more serious problem was
difficult terrain. 45
By 16 March, when troops of the 78th
Division made the first cut of the Ruhr-
Frankfurt autobahn northeast of Hon-
nef, expansion of the bridgehead had
proceeded to the point where artillery
no longer was able to support the attacks
properly from the west bank of the
Rhine. As artillery units began to cross
the river, engineers supporting the VII
Corps began construction of three more
tactical bridges to care for the increased
logistical burden. Keyed to the north-
ward advance of the infantry east of the
43 Sylvan Diary, entry of 15 Mar 45, and passim.
44 III Corps and VII Corps AAR’s Mar 45, and
pertinent German MSS.
46 III Corps AAR, Mar 45.
A RHI NE BRI DGE AT REMAGEN 233
Rhine, the first of the bridges was com-
pleted late on 17 March, another on 19
March, and a third, located at the south-
ern fringe of Bonn, on 21 March.
Screened by smoke from chemical gen-
erators, the engineers incurred only one
casualty during the course of construc-
tion. 46
Of all the American attacks, those to
the north and northeast by the 1st and
78th Divisions continued to bother the
German army group commander most.
More than ever convinced that the
Americans intended to make their main
effort northward toward the Ruhr, Field
Marshal Model recognized that a strong
counterattack had to be staged soon or
the Americans would breach the natural
defensive line in the north, the Sieg
River, which enters the Rhine just down-
stream from Bonn, and then be ready for
exploitation.
On 19 March Model began to strip all
armored units from the eastern and
southern portions of the line to assemble
them in the north for counterattack. I n
the process, he introduced the LXXIV
Corps to command the northern sector,
then ordered the commander, General
Puechler, to exchange places with the
tank expert, General Bayerlein of the
LIII Corps, thereby reversing the two
corps headquarters. As finally consti-
tuted, the ring around the Remagen
bridgehead involved the LI I I Corps un-
der Bayerlein in the north, the LXXlV
Corps under Peuchler in the center, and
the LXVII Corps under General Hitz-
feld in the south. 47
Unfortunately for Model’s plan, the
46 VII Corps Engineer Office, Rhine Crossings of
VII Corps; VII Corps AAR, Mar 45.
47 MSS # A–970 (Bayerlein); # B–829 (Zangen);
# B–101 (Hitzfeld).
Americans afforded no pause in their
attacks. Once relieved from the line, the
depleted German armored units had to
be committed piecemeal again to try to
block the continuing thrusts. Although
this produced occasional intense combat,
particularly at towns or villages blocking
main highways, nowhere was it sufficient
to stall or throw back the infantry of
the two American divisions. Operating
with only normal tank and tank de-
stroyer attachments, the 78th Division
on 21 March gained the Sieg River, the
northern limit of the bridgehead as au-
thorized by General Bradley. At that
point the corps commander, General Col-
lins, attached to the 78th Division a
combat command of the 3d Armored
Division to attack east along the south
bank of the Sieg. By 22 March the di-
visions of the VII Corps had reached the
final bridgehead line, both at the Sieg
River and along the west bank of the
little Hanf Creek that empties into the
Sieg just over nine miles east of the
Rhine.
The 9th and 99th Divisions of the III
Corps, commanded now by General Van
Fleet, profited from the shift of German
armor to the north. On 18 March the
9th Division at last cut the autobahn,
while patrols from the 99th Division
reached the meandering Wied River al-
most due east of Remagen. Other con-
tingents of the 99th Division drove
swiftly southward close along the Rhine
almost to a point opposite Andernach.
By 20 March the I I I Corps had reached
the prescribed bridgehead line.
As both corps neared the planned line,
General Hodges at the First Army’s
headquarters fretted at the restrictions
still binding his troops. Watching with
admiration far-reaching drives west of
234 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
the Rhine by the Thi rd Army, Hodges
was convinced the end for Germany was
near. “The war is over, I tell you,” he
kept repeating to his colleagues; “the
war is over.” 48
The next day, 19 March, as pleasant
but unfounded rumors swept the First
Army of an impending armistice, Hodges
flew, at the 12th Army Group command-
er’s behest, to meet General Bradley in
Luxembourg City. During the morning,
Hodges learned, Bradley had conferred
with General Eisenhower. I n anticipa-
tion of an early attack by Montgomery’s
21 Army Group to cross the Rhine,
Hodges was authorized to send a maxi-
mum of nine divisions into the Remagen
bridgehead. From 23 March on, he was
to be prepared to break out to the south-
east, the main objective to be Limburg
and the Lahn River valley and linkup
with Third Army troops once Patton’s
forces crossed the Rhine. 49
The wraps thus were about to be re-
moved from the First Army, though the
final unveiling was predicated on Mont-
gomery’s crossing the Rhine. The date
for the First Army’s big push later would
be set for 25 March.
I n preparation for the attack, Hodges
on the 21st sent General Huebner’s V
Corps into the bridgehead to take over
the southern periphery from the 99th
Division. When the attack date came,
nine divisions, including three armored
divisions, would be ready for the ex-
ploitation.
It remained for the Germans to write
a final, futile postscript to the Remagen
bridgehead fighting. On 24 March, still
imbued with the idea that the Americans
48 Sylvan Diary, entry of 18 Mar 45.
49 Ibid., entries of 19–20 Mar 45.
were aiming directly for the Ruhr, Field
Marshal Model managed to assemble the
bulk of the German armor for his long-
delayed counterattack under the direc-
tion of General Bayerlein. Yet when the
Germans struck the divisions of the VII
Corps, their efforts were poorly co-ordi-
nated and far too weak for the job. I t
was, in effect, not one counterattack but
several small ones that brought intense
fighting at various points but, in the end,
gained nothing. The Germans merely
frittered away irreplaceable troops that
would be needed desperately the next
day elsewhere along the periphery of the
Remagen bridgehead and already were
needed at other points on the elongated
Rhine front, where on 23 March porten-
tous events had begun to occur.
The capture of the Ludendorff rail-
road bridge and its subsequent exploita-
tion was one of those coups de théâtre
that sometimes happen in warfare and
never fail to capture the imagination.
just how much it speeded the end of the
war is another question. The bridgehead
dealt a serious blow to German morale
that may well have been partly responsi-
ble for lackluster resistance at other
points, and it served as a magnet to draw
a measure of fighting strength from other
sites. On the other hand, the German
Army clearly would have been beaten
without it, perhaps just as quickly. 50
From 7 through 24 March, the Rem-
agen bridgehead fighting cost the III
Corps approximately 5,500 casualties, in-
cluding almost 700 killed and 600
missing. The VII Corps, from 16 through
24 March, incurred not quite 1,900
casualties, including 163 killed and 240
50 For a German view, see Wagener, MS # A-
965.
A RHI NE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN
235
missing. I n the same time span, the Ger-
mans lost more than 11,700 men as
prisoners alone.
When the First Army attacked again
on 25 March, a new war of movement
even more spectacular than that dis-
played in the drive to the Rhine was to
open. A precursor of what it would be
like was to be seen in a drive already
underway by the Third Army into the
Saar-Palatinate.
CHAPTER XII
The Saar-Palatinate
General Patton of the Third Army
was “just a little envious” of the First
Army’s Rhine crossing at Remagen. 1
Yet there was little he could do immedi-
ately—once the 4th Armored Division
had turned away from the Rhine—to
emulate it. The Third Army was obli-
gated to assist in a pending drive to
eliminate the last German position west
of the Rhine, and Patton himself was
eager to expand his army’s part in that
operation from support to major effort.
The position to be erased had become
known to American planners and com-
manders, after the political entity that
made up the bulk of the area, as the
Saar-Palatinate. Lying south of the Mo-
selle, the area embraced more than 3,000
square miles and included the Saar in-
dustrial region, the old Bavarian Palati-
nate, part of the provinces of Rhineland
and Hessen, and a belt of French terri-
tory along the Franco-German border in
the northeastern corner of Alsace. Near
the southern base of the region stood
the West Wall, there stronger than any-
where else. On the western edge, Gen-
eral Walker’s XX Corps, having cleared
the Saar-Moselle triangle and captured
Trier, had already pierced the West
Wall; the rest of the Third Army, hav-
ing conquered the Eifel, was in behind
the German defenders.
1 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 254.
To the Allies, the Saar-Palatinate had
been an important goal since preinva-
sion planning days. The Saar was second
only to the Ruhr as a source of Ger-
many’s war-making muscle, and the
region screened feasible Rhine crossing
sites lying between Mainz and Mann-
heim. Both the Third Army and Gen-
eral Devers’s 6th Army Group needed
access to those crossing sites to assure
their logical roles in the final broad-
front advance into the heart of Ger-
many.
From the German viewpoint, the
Saar-Palatinate was important both for
its economic significance and for the
military obstacle it posed to Allied ar-
mies. Based on the nearby iron ore of
Lorraine and on extensive coal fields in
the Saar River basin around Saar-
bruecken, the heavy industry of the
Saar contributed 10 percent of Ger-
many’s iron and steel capacity. Coal pro-
duction totaled 7,000,000 tons annually.
Despite the proximity of Allied troops
and almost daily raids by Allied planes,
the Germans in early March still were
shipping twelve trainloads of coal daily
to plants east of the Rhine, and the
foundries of the Saar continued to
operate. At Homburg, northeast of Saar-
bruecken, stood one of the comparatively
few synthetic oil plants still producing
in the Reich; and at Ludwigshafen,
across the Rhine from Mannheim, some
I
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
237
40 to 50 percent of the nation’s entire
output of chemicals was centered in an
I. G. Farben plant. The industry of
small cities such as Kaiserslautern,
Speyer, and Worms also was impor-
tant. 2
As a miiltary obstacle, the Saar-
Palatinate drew strength not only from
the West Wall but also from the built-
up industrial region, from deep stream
valleys, and from mountainous terrain.
Along the northern boundary twists the
deep valley of the Moselle, backed by
the Hunsrueck Mountains, higher than
the Eifel. Along the western and south-
ern boundaries, the Saar and the Lauter
Rivers pose similar barriers, the former
also backed by the Hunsrueck Moun-
tains, the latter by the densely forested
Haardt or Lower Vosges Mountains, ris-
ing as high as 2,300 feet. Between the
Hunsrueck and the Haardt lies the
Pfaelzer Bergland, or Palatinate High-
land.
The watershed between the Pfaelzer
Bergland and the Haardt Mountains is
high and narrow but also relatively flat
and traversed by a good highway leading
from Saarbruecken through Kaiserslau-
tern to the Rhine in the vicinity of
Worms, thus constituting a small corri-
dor with considerable military utility.
This corrider has become known as the
Kaiserslautern Gap. A northeastward
extension of the Metz Gap in Lorraine,
it is one of only two logical passages
through the Saar-Palatinate for sizable
2 The Seventh United States Army Report of
Operations, France and Germany, 1944–1945, vol.
III, p. 695, a comprehensive three-volume work
prepared with the assistance of historical officers
attached to the Seventh Army (hereafter cited as
Seventh Army Report). See also MS # B–600,
Army Group G, Report of the Commander (Gen-
eraloberst Paul Hausser).
military forces. The other, the Wissem-
bourg Gap, whence the Prussians de-
bouched against France in 1870, opens
a way from the northeastern corner of
France into the valley of the Rhine.
The man responsible for defending
the Saar-Palatinate was General Hausser,
who had assumed command of Army
Group G near the end of J anuary after
recovering from a wound incurred
while commanding an army in France
the preceding summer. I n addition to
the First Army, which long had held the
Saar front, Hausser’s command at first
had included the Nineteenth Army,
formerly a part of that anomaly called
Army Group Oberrhein; but as the
Nineteenth Army in early February
withdrew under pressure from the Col-
mar pocket to the east bank of the
Rhine, one by one its combat divisions
had been commandeered for more active
fronts. I n early March, as the drive by
Patton’s Third Army threatened to rid-
dle the Eifel and expose the long line
of the Moselle, thereby prompting OB
WEST to shift the Seventh Army in the
Eifel to Hausser’s command, the Nine-
teenth Army passed to direct control of
the Commander in Chief West.
I n most ways, the shift was a case of
pl us ça change, pl us c’est la même chose.
Yet Hausser’s responsibility for the
Seventh Army meant that his point of
main danger shifted from the Kaisers-
lautern and Wissembourg Gaps to the
winding trench of the Moselle facing the
Eifel.
Unless additional units could be sent
to bolster the Seventh Army, Hausser
notified OB WEST, successive withdraw-
als back to the Rhine was the best Army
Group G could hope to accomplish.
“Otherwise,” Hausser warned, “envelop-
238 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
ment and annihilation of First Army
will be imminent.” 3
The answer from Field Marshal von
Rundstedt, acting out his last days as
Commander in Chief West, was suc-
cinct, uncompromising.
Hold the Saar-Palatinate.
American Plans
For the Americans, clearing the Saar-
Palatinate would be a return to unfin-
ished business that the Third and Sev-
enth Armies had been conducting in
December when forced to retrench to
help defeat the Ardennes counter-
offensive and Operation NORDWI ND,
the secondary counteroffensive in Al-
sace. Both armies had reached the West
Wall guarding the Saar-Palatinate in
December. The Third Army had forged
two bridgeheads into the fortified line,
one of which, at Saarlautern, remained
intact. The Seventh Army had cleared
northeastern Alsace and jumped the
Lauter River at two points to confront
the West Wall, but the necessity to
spread out in order to free Third Army
units for the Ardennes and to recoil be-
fore Operation NORDWI ND had forced
withdrawals, in some places as much as
nineteen miles. Through most of Febru-
ary the Seventh Army had staged limited
objective attacks to straighten lines and
gain favorable ground for a major of-
fensive against the Saar-Palatinate. Nev-
ertheless, by the end of the first week in
March, most of the northeastern corner
of Alsace still was in German hands. The
front departed from the Saar River near
Sarreguemines and extended almost di-
3 MS # B–600 (Hawser).
rectly southeast through Hagenau to the
Rhine. 4 (Map IX)
Anticipating early completion of op-
erations to clear the west bank of the
Rhine north of the Moselle, General
Eisenhower on 13 February had told his
two American army group commanders,
Bradley and Devers, to begin planning
for a joint drive to sweep the Saar-
Palatinate. Assigned a target date of 15
March, the offensive was to begin only
after the 21 Army Group had reached
the Rhine. I t was to be designed both to
draw enemy units from the north and to
provide an alternate line of attack across
the Rhine should the principal Allied
drive in the north fail. The main effort,
SHAEF planners contemplated, was to
be made by the 6th Army Group’s Sev-
enth Army, which was to be augmented
by transferring one armored and three
infantry divisions from the Third
Army. 5
During the first week of March, Gen-
eral Devers at 6th Army Group approved
a plan (Operation UNDERTONE) pre-
pared by General Patch’s Seventh Army.
Three corps were to attack abreast from
Saarbruecken to a point southeast of
Hagenau. A narrow strip along the
Rhine leading to the extreme northeast-
ern corner of Alsace at Lauterbourg was
to be cleared by a division of the First
French Army under operational control
of the Seventh Army. The Seventh Ar-
my’s main effort was to be made in the
center up the Kaiserslautern corridor. 6
4 These actions are covered in Robert Ross Smith,
The Riviera to the Rhine, a forthcoming volume
in the UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD
WAR II series.
5 SHAEF GCT/37057/Plans, Note on Early Con-
centration for Saar Offensives, 14 Feb 45, SHAEF
files.
6 Seventh Army Report, pp. 698–99.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
239
GENERAL DEVERS. (Photograph taken
in late 1945.)
Approving the plan in turn, General
Eisenhower noted that the objective was
not only to clear the Saar-Palatinate but
also to establish bridgeheads with forces
of the 6th Army Group over the Rhine
between Mainz and Mannheim. The
12th Army Group (i.e., the Third
Army), he also noted, was to be limited
to diversionary attacks across the Mo-
selle to protect the 6th Army Group’s
left flank. 7
Eisenhower approved on 8 March, the
same day that General Patton obtained
approval from General Bradley for the
plan prepared by the Third Army staff
for a major attack across the Moselle. 8
7 FWD 17655, SHAEF to Devers and Bradley,
081650 Mar 45, SHAEF SGS Post-OVERLORD Plan-
ning file, 381, III.
8 See above, ch. X; Gay Diary, entry of 8 Mar 45.
The 12th Army Group commander in
turn promoted the plan with General
Eisenhower. 9 Noting that the Germans
had given no indication of withdrawing
from the West Wall in front of the Sev-
enth Army and that General Patch thus
might be in for a long, costly campaign,
Bradley suggested that the Third Army
jump the Moselle near Koblenz, sweep
south along the west bank of the Rhine
to cut the enemy’s supply lines, and at
the same time press from its previously
established Saar-Moselle bridgehead
near Trier to come at the West Wall for-
tifications from the rear. General Eisen-
hower approved the plan without quali-
fication . 10
While the proposal to employ the
Third Army in the Saar-Palatinate was
based on sound tactical considerations,
Bradley and Patton both also saw it as a
way of getting the Third Army in-
volved, thereby obviating loss of divi-
sions either to Montgomery’s 21 Army
Group or to Devers’s 6th Army Group. 11
Yet the stratagem proved unnecessary as
far as the 21 Army Group was con-
cerned, since General Eisenhower told
Field Marshal Montgomery that if ten
U.S. divisions went north to help the 21
Army Group, Bradley’s 12th Army
Group headquarters would also move
north to command the First and Ninth
Armies. That may have played a part in
silencing Montgomery on the subject of
9 Bradley, A Soldier’s St ory, p. 516.
10 Ibid. A plan for a combined Third-Seventh
Army thrust to clear the Saar-Palatinate had been
prepared at 12th Army Group as early as February,
when flooding of the Roer River appeared likely
to delay Operation GRENADE indefinitely. See Col.
Harrison H. D. Heiberg, Study of Future Opera-
tions, 12th AGp Miscellaneous Log 214.
11 Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, p. 255.
240 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
additional American divisions to exploit
his Rhine crossing. 12
The stratagem only partially suc-
ceeded with the 6th Army Group; Brad-
ley at last felt compelled to relinquish
two divisions, the 4th Infantry and 6th
Armored, the latter already designated
as SHAEF reserve. Although he agreed
to part with a third, impending arrival
of the last serials of a new division from
the United States made it unnecessary.
As the target date for the Saar-Palatinate
campaign neared, the 6th Army Group
had eleven infantry and three armored
divisions in the Seventh Army, plus the
First French Army. The Third Army
retained twelve divisions, four of them
armored.
Although General Devers was briefly
reluctant to endorse Third Army oper-
ations south of the Moselle lest the two
forces become entangled with their con-
verging thrusts, he too in the end a p
proved the plan. He and Bradley agreed
on a new boundary that afforded the
Third Army a good road leading north-
east from Saarlautern to headwaters of
the Nahe River, some thirty-five miles
northeast of Saarlautern, thence along
the valley of the Nahe to the Rhine at
Bingen. This boundary gave the Third
Army responsibility for clearing the
northwestern third of the Saar-
Palatinate. Bradley and Devers also au-
thorized the commanders of the two
armies, Third and Seventh, to deal di-
rectly with each other rather than
through their respective army group
headquarters. Patton and the Seventh
Army commander, General Patch,
agreed in turn that once operations were
12 Ibid., pp. 517–18.
GENERAL PATCH
under way, Patton’s right corps and
Patch’s left might also deal directly. 13
Facing the undented fortifications of
the West Wall, the Seventh Army com-
mander planned a set-piece attack, pre-
ceded by an extensive program of aerial
bombardment. Before the attack could
begin, supplies had to be accumulated,
division and corps boundaries adjusted,
some units shuffled, and new divisions
joining the army fed into jump-off posi-
tions. 14 This meant to General Patch
13 Msg, 6th AGp to SHAEF, 081708 Mar 45,
SHAEF SGS file, 381, III; 12th AGp Ltr of Instrs
17, 13 Mar 45.
14 In a local attack on 13 March to better posi-
tions for start of the offensive, T. Sgt. Morris E.
Crain of the 36th Division’s 141st Infantry pro-
vided exemplary leadership without regard for
his own safety through much of the day, then
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
241
that the Seventh Army could not attack
before the target date, 15 March.
General Patton, on the other hand,
based his entire plan for participation
in the Saar-Palatinate on exploiting dis-
organization in German ranks resulting
from his Eifel drive. The sooner he
could start the better his chances for far-
reaching results. He saw no point in
waiting for the Seventh Army.
That was part of the reasoning behind
Patton’s preoccupation with bridges
over the Moselle which resulted in shift-
ing the 4th Armored Division away
from the Rhine on 9 March. 15 When the
attempt to capture a bridge intact across
the Moselle failed, Patton turned to a
deliberate attack to be opened with a
strike by the XX Corps on 12 March.
While the 76th Division, transferred
from the XII Corps, took over an earlier
assignment given the XX Corps to clear
a narrow sector along the north bank
of the Moselle, the rest of the XX Corps
was to drive east from the Saar River
bridgehead south of Trier, the bridge-
head established as a corollary of the
operations to clear the Saar-Moselle tri-
angle. As soon as regrouping was com-
plete, General Eddy’s XII Corps was to
jump the lower Moselle near Koblenz
and head for Bingen, at the juncture of
the Nahe and the Rhine, and for Bad
Kreuznach, a few miles upstream on the
Nahe. Walker and Eddy thus were, in
effect, to make converging attacks that,
if unaltered later, would join along the
stayed behind as a one-man covering force when
a tank-supported counterattack forced his platoon
to withdraw. Sergeant Crain died when German
fire demolished the building from which he was
fighting. He was awarded the Medal of Honor
posthumously.
15 See above, ch. X.
Nahe River. General Middleton’s VIII
Corps, meanwhile, was to hold the west
bank of the Rhine above Koblenz, finish
the mop-up in the Eifel, and eventually
reduce Koblenz. If, in the process of its
watch on the Rhine, the VIII Corps saw
a chance to jump the river, Middleton
was to allow it to do so. 16
Those were the written orders. While
they conformed to the established bound-
ary with the Seventh Army along the
Nahe River, General Patton from the
first intended that the boundary impose
no restrictions on his maneuver. Orally,
he told his corps commanders that the
objective was to establish bridgeheads
over the Rhine in the vicinity of Mainz,
Oppenheim, and Worms—the same sites
he had picked the preceding summer,
long before the detour to Bastogne and
through the Eifel. 17 All three sites lay in
what was then the Seventh Army zone.
Patton clearly anticipated a swift break-
through and rapid exploitation that
would impel further boundary adjust-
ment.
The Defenders
As indicated by the warnings of the
Army Group G commander, General
Hausser, that his forces could hope to
accomplish no more than a fighting with-
drawal from the Saar-Palatinate, the Ger-
man situation conformed to Patton’s
expectations. Even had the problem re-
mained merely to defend the old First
Army front from Trier to the Rhine,
most of it bolstered by West Wall fortifi-
cations, Hausser’s units would have been
hard put to hold. As it was, Hausser had
to thin already dangerously stretched
16 TUSA Opnl Dir, 10 Mar 45.
17 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 254.
242
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
First Army units in an effort to
strengthen his new charge, the Seventh
Army, along the Moselle. 18
I n the retreat from the Eifel, General
Felber’s Seventh Army lost not only
thousands of soldiers but a corps head-
quarters, the LIII Corps. Split away from
the rest of the army by the U.S. 4th
Armored Division’s plunge to the Rhine,
the corps commander, General Botsch,
and some of his staff had escaped across
the Rhine, while the bulk of those in the
Seventh Army who got away were falling
back behind the Moselle. To take the
place of this corps, the Army Group G
commander, General Hausser, called on
the LXXXI X Corps under General der
Infanterie Gustav Hoehne from the ex-
treme left wing of the First Army. Leav-
ing behind its assigned divisions to be
absorbed by the neighboring corps, the
headquarters of the LXXXI X Corps
arrived at the Moselle on 9 March.
To General Hoehne went the task of
defending some twenty-five miles of the
Moselle from Koblenz to a point up-
stream from Cochem. As everywhere
along the Moselle, the snakelike convolu-
tions of the river added to the actual
length of the front and created danger-
ous re-entrants. To defend such a serpen-
tine obstacle with any real hope of
success would have required either
enough troops on the north bank to stop
the re-entrants or sufficient reserves to
hit any crossing quickly. The LXXXIX
Corps and the Seventh Army had nei-
ther.
As the LXXXI X Corps moved into
position, General Hoehne assumed com-
18 Unless otherwise noted, the German story is
based on the following MSS: # B–238 (Hauser);
# B–123 (Gersdorff); # B–831 (Felber); # B–600
(Hausser); and # C–020 (Schramm).
mand of Kampfgruppe Koblenz, a 1,800-
man local defense force whose only fire
support was from stationary antiaircraft
guns, mostly east of the Rhine, and the
276th Infantry Division, which had es-
caped from the Eifel with the equivalent
of two infantry, two engineer, and two
light field artillery battalions. With-
drawn from the First Army as a first step
in providing a reserve for the Seventh
Army, a third unit, the 159th Infantry
Division, had to be used instead to aug-
ment Hoehne’s corps. A force of fairly
presentable strength, the 159th took
over the left wing. 19
By further stretching the First Army
defenses, the Army Group G commander
had freed another unit, also scheduled
originally for the Seventh Army reserve
—the 6th SS Mountain Division, per-
haps the most combat-worthy division
remaining in Army Group G. Yet on 5
March, in a belated reaction to the U.S.
10th Armored Division’s capture of
Trier, OB WEST had ordered that di-
vision to counterattack across the Ruwer
River south of Trier to sever the Ameri-
can armored division’s line of communi-
cations. Striking the U.S. 94th Division,
the mountain division the next day had
cut the main highway into Trier from
the south. 20
It was a Pyrrhic victory. I n the attack
and against the American counterattacks
that followed, the flower of the 6th SS
Mountain Division’s manpower fell.
Two days later, as OB WEST finally
gave in to Army Group G’s protestations,
the remainder of the division began to
withdraw, but for lack of gasoline one
19 MSS #B–377, Fighting of the LXXXIX Corps
From 10 to 16 March (General der Infanterie
Gustav Hoehne); # B–831 (Felber).
20 94th Div AAR, Mar 45.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE 243
regiment had to stay behind. Although
General Hausser decided, reluctantly, to
give the division to the LXXXIX Corps
rather than hold it in reserve, only the
reconnaissance battalion would reach the
corps before the Moselle front erupted.
Hausser had only one other hope for a
reserve. For more than a week he had
sought to withdraw the 559th Volks
Grenadier Division from a salient ex-
tending beyond the West Wall south of
Saarbruecken; but since that would in-
volve abandoning some West Wall posi-
tions, authority had to come from Hitler
himself. The permission finally arrived
but, as events were to prove, too late.
The first contingents of the division be-
came available to assist the Seventh Army
only on 15 March.
On the left of the LXXXIX Corps,
responsible for another twenty-five miles
of steep, rocky, vine-clad river bank,
stood General von Oriola’s XIII Corps,
consisting of remnants of three volks
grenadier divisions and the 2d Panzer
Division. None of the divisions could be
classed as more than a Kumpfgrupee and
the panzer division, though somewhat
stronger in numbers than the others,
had only a few tanks. The rest of the
Moselle front to the vicinity of Trier,
thence southeast along the Ruwer River
to a point of contact with the First Army
three miles south of the Moselle, be-
longed to General Beyer’s LXXX Corps.
Beyer commanded remnants of three
volks grenadier divisions. 21
21 MSS # B–052, XIII Corps, 18 February–21
March 1945 (Generalleutnant Ralph von Oriola);
# B–082, The Final Fighting of the LXXX Army
Corps From the Marne to the Danube (General
der Infanterie Franz Beyer), p. 3.
Despite the withdrawals to aid the
Seventh Army, Army Group G’s other
major component, the First Army under
General der Infanterie Hermann
Foertsch, remained the considerably
stronger force. Having benefited by
transfer of a number of the Nineteenth
Army’s divisions following withdrawal
from the Colmar pocket, the First Army
had seen little major fighting in recent
weeks except that in the Saar-Moselle
triangle and the limited objective at-
tacks in Alsace launched by the Ameri-
can Seventh Army in February. Yet the
weakest point of the First Army front
was at the same time the most threat-
ened, and the necessity of giving up di-
visions to the Seventh Army meant that
General Foertsch could do little about it.
The point in question was the bridge-
head beyond the Saar River and the
West Wall south of Trier established by
the U.S. XX Corps. There stood the
LXXXII Corps under General Hahm,
part of which earlier had been driven
from the Saar-Moselle triangle. Until 10
March, the corps still had only three di-
visions, two of which had been roughly
treated in the triangle. The third, the
2d Mountain Division, was also seriously
understrength following its futile, piece-
meal counterattacks against the bridge-
head over the Saar. On 10 March com-
mand of the remnants of another divi-
sion passed from the Seventh Army’s
LXXX Corps to the LXXXII Corps, but
with it came responsibility for defending
an additional three miles of front close
to Trier. With this addition, General
Hahm’s line ran from a point east of
Trier southeast to the other American
bridgehead over the Saar at Saarlautern.
Somewhat less than one-half of this line
244 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
benefited from West Wall fortifica-
tions. 22
Containing the Saarlautern bridgehead
was one of the responsibilities of the
LXXXV Corps, commanded by General
der Infanterie Baptist Kniess. The corps
had three divisions, all nearly at full
strength; but one, the 559th Volks Grena-
dier, was destined for transfer to the
Seventh Army. 23 Unlike the commander
of the adjoining LXXXII Corps and
those defending the Moselle, General
Kniess was confident his troops could
hold against frontal attack, for the West
Wall in his sector was in considerable
depth. I t was concern about American
breakthrough from the rear that plagued
both Kniess and the commanders of two
other corps that extended the First Army
line southeast to the Rhine. Although
these two corps, the XIII SS and the XC,
would no doubt be driven back from
their advanced positions in Alsace, they
would gain strength by retiring into the
West Wall.
When the new Commander in Chief
West, Field Marshal Kesselring, paid his
first visit to First and Seventh Army
headquarters on 13 March, the army
group commander, General Hausser, and
the two army commanders used the oc-
casion to emphasize how sterile and po-
tentially disastrous they considered the
policy of all-out defense west of the
Rhine. It could only result, they insisted,
in wholesale losses, perhaps annihilation.
The latter, General Felber of the Seventh
Army pointed out, seemed highly likely,
because the U.S. 4th Armored Division
was apparently concentrating along the
22 MS # B–066 (Ingelheim).
23 MS # B–121, LXXXV Corps, 25 January–23
March 1945, Operations in the Saar (General der
Infanterie Baptist Kniess).
lower Moselle near Cochem for a quick
thrust that could cut the entire army
group off from the Rhine.
Yet Kesselring, true to his charge from
his Fuehrer—whether he believed in it
or not—refused to sanction either with-
drawal or a deliberate delaying action.
“The positions,” Kesselring said, “have
to be held.” 24
Through the Hunsrueck
General Patton’s plan of attack was
admirably designed to ,capitalize on Ger-
man weaknesses. Striking first, Walker’s
XX Corps might attract any available
reserve, whereupon Eddy’s XI I Corps
was to jump the Moselle at one of the
defenders’ weakest points, the sector of
Hoehne’s LXXXIX Corps. Quick con-
vergence of the two drives well might
trap the other two corps of the Seventh
Army, and a logical extension of Eddy’s
thrust southward alongside the Rhine
could, as the German General Felber
feared, trap all of Army Group G.
For the opening attack, General
Walker had an outsize corps of four in-
fantry divisions, two cavalry groups, and
an armored division. One cavalry group,
the 3d, started the fighting during the
afternoon of 12 March with a diversion-
ary attack in a loop of the Moselle near
the confluence of the Moselle and the
Ruwer. After nightfall, as a drizzling rain
showed signs of diminishing, troops of
three infantry divisions moved toward
lines of departure along the periphery
of the Saar bridgehead south of Trier.
At 0245 on 13 March an impressive total
of thirty-one divisional and corps field
24 Quotation is from MS # B–600 (Paul Haus-
ser). See also MSS # B–123 (Gersdorff); # B–831
(Felber); # B–238 (Wolf Hauser).
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
245
artillery battalions opened fire. Fifteen
minutes later, the infantry moved
through the darkness to the attack.
The 94th Division (General Malony)
on the left headed east toward the cross-
roads town of Hermeskeil, ten miles
beyond the Ruwer; the 80th Division
(General McBride) in the center drove
southeast toward Weiskirchen and Lo-
sheim, approximately seven miles away.
Capture of these objectives would put
the XX Corps through the most densely
wooded portions of the Hunsrueck and
open the way for armor. The 26th Divi-
sion (General Paul) meanwhile attacked
almost due south in a narrow zone close
to the Saar to roll up the West Wall.
After daylight, a regiment of the 65th
Division (Maj. Gen. Stanley E. Rein-
hart), new to combat, staged a diver-
sionary, limited objective attack in the
Saarlautern bridgehead. 25
Nowhere was the going easy. The ter-
rain—high, fir-covered hills, deep draws
and ravines, and a secondary roadnet al-
ready churned into mud by German ve-
hicles—was enough in itself to see to
that; but the German regiments, seri-
ously depleted in numbers, could take
advantage of the difficult ground only at
isolated points rather than along a con-
tinuous line. I n the darkness, the at-
tacking battalions stumbled onto some
enemy positions, ran into minefields, and
drew heavy small arms and mortar fire,
but more often than not, a sideslipping
to left or right brought quick relief and
continued advance. The action was more
an infiltration than an attack, with re-
serve companies and reserve battalions
25 For assignments, see XX Corps FO 18, 10 Mar
45. Unless otherwise noted, this account is based
on official records of the XX Corps and its divi-
sions.
taking out the strongpoints after daylight
came.
By early evening of 13 March, the 94th
and 80th Divisions both had firm holds
on the first ridgeline beyond the original
bridgehead, as much as two miles from
the jump-off points, and bridges were in
place across both the Ruwer and a feeder
stream that cut the 80th Division’s zone. 26
Unlike the other two units, the 26th Di-
vision in the pillbox belt near the Saar
came in for frequent local counterat-
tacks, but that division also advanced as
much as two miles.
The next day, 14 March, the drive
slowed down. The Germans, wherever
encountered, fought back defiantly, giv-
ing no indication of general withdrawal.
This was particularly true among the pill-
boxes faced by the 26th Division, where
a combination of concrete-reinforced re-
sistance and rough terrain brought ad-
vances that had to be measured in yards
rather than miles. A counterattack by
the regiment of the 6th SS Mountain
Division that had been left behind by
its parent division for want of gasoline
slowed the advance of the 80th Divi-
sion. 27 When the weather cleared in the
afternoon, planes of the XIX Tactical
Air Command got into the fray in
strength, but because it was hard to pin-
point advance positions in the thick fir
26 Part of the success achieved by the 80th Divi-
sion’s 318th Infantry was directly attributable to
the actions of one officer, 2d Lt. Harry J . Michael.
He singlehandedly captured two machine guns and
their crews, then led his platoon in a charge that
carried an artillery position and seized three guns.
A few hours later he individually captured 13
Germans, wounded 4, and killed 2, then again led
a successful charge against German pillboxes. The
next morning a shot from ambush cut Lieutenant
Michael down. He was awarded the Medal of
Honor posthumously.
27 MS # B–066 (Ingelheim).
246 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
forests, the strikes had to be confined to
targets well in front of the infantry.
Visiting all three division command
posts during the day, the Third Army
commander was disturbed at the slow
pace. General Patch’s Seventh Army,
General Patton knew, was to begin its
offensive the next morning. Patton was
concerned lest Patch beat him to the
Rhine. 28
Patton need not have worried. On the
third day, 15 March, no general German
collapse developed, but the signs were
there. The 94th Division’s 302d Infantry
plunged forward four miles and reached
a point less than three miles from the
division objective of Hermeskeil. A bat-
tallion of the 80th Division’s 318th In-
fantry fought its way into Weiskirchen,
one of that division’s objectives, there
encountering a veritable hornet’s nest of
opposition. The battalion nonetheless
achieved a sizable gain and was on the
edge of more open country. Another
battalion made an even deeper thrust
farther south. Although the 26th Divi-
sion had the usual hard time with pill-
boxes, the 26th’s attack was a subsidiary
operation that nobody looked on as the
bellwether of the drive.
To the XX Corps commander, Gen-
eral Walker, the time for exploitation
seemed at hand. Although air reconnais-
sance found no evidence of wholesale
German withdrawal, this report merely
reinforced Walker’s determination to
commit his armor. A swift strike by tanks
might trap the Germans before they had
a chance to escape.
J ust after midnight Walker told the
10th Armored Division, already on one-
hour alert, to jump off before daylight
28 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 259.
on the 16th to pass through the 94th and
80th Divisions. The goal was the Nahe
River, some twenty-five miles away.
Across the Lower Moselle
Playing a large part in Walker’s de-
cision was the situation in the zone of
General Eddy’s XI I Corps on the lower
Moselle. There, before dawn on 14
March, two infantry divisions had set out
to cross the river.
The terrain along the lower Moselle
is forbidding at the river line itself—
precipitous, forested slopes rising to a
thousand feet, with egress from the river
bottom by steep twisting roads—but only
a mile or two from the river most of the
roads emerge onto open, relatively flat-
surfaced ridgelines broad enough for mil-
itary maneuver. Thus the XI I Corps
commander, General Eddy, anticipated
that once his infantry had reached the
crest of the ridgelines, armor could
quickly take over and drive the remain-
ing thirty miles to the Nahe River. Al-
though he ordered his infantry divisions
to attack toward the Nahe as soon as they
had established bridgeheads over the
Moselle, he alerted the 4th Armored
Division for rapid commitment and
urged corps engineers to begin building
bridges capable of handling tanks even
as the infantrymen were crossing the
river in assault boats. 29
Concealed by darkness and a heavy fog,
two regiments of the 90th Division (Gen-
eral Earnest) and one of the 5th (Gen-
eral Irwin) began to cross the Moselle
at 0200, 14 March, behind a 30-minute
artillery preparation. A second regiment
28 See XII Corps FO 16, 11 Mar 45. Unless other-
wise noted, the tactical story is from official records
of the corps and divisions.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE 247
of the 5th Division—arrival of its assault
boats delayed by traffic-jammed roads—
crossed two hours later. Only an occa-
sional inaccurate burst of fire from rest-
less German machine gunners interfered
with any of the crossings.
On the far bank, the infantrymen
found resistance centered almost exclu-
sively in the towns and villages. I n Treis,
riverside nexus of several good roads
leading southeast and six miles down-
stream from Cochem, contingents of the
enemy’s 159th Division held a battalion
of the 5th Division’s 2d Infantry at bay
until after nightfall when opening of a
treadway bridge across the Moselle en-
abled tanks to help mop up. It took a
battalion of the 90th Division’s 357th
Infantry until noon to clear other troops
of the 159th Division from the town of
Brodenbach, while in another town just
over a mile downstream the 6th SS
Mountain Division’s reconnaissance bat-
talion held out until midafternoon.
I n the meantime, the other battalions
of both the 5th and 90th Divisions had
been occupying the high ground between
and behind the villages. By nightfall
some units had pushed more than two
miles beyond the river; casualties in the
two divisions together totaled less than
a hundred. At first concealed by fog, then
by smoke, and hampered only by a swift
current and sporadic, ineffective German
shelling, engineers soon after nightfall
opened treadway bridges to serve both
divisions.
The comparative ease of the crossing
early prompted the 5th Division com-
mander, General Irwin, to alert a regi-
ment for a fast motorized advance the
next morning, 15 March, aimed at the
corps objective along the Nahe River.
The corps commander, General Eddy,
was similarly impressed. When Irwin
asked for trucks to transport his infantry,
Eddy cautioned that he intended to com-
mit the 4th Armored Division (General
Gaffey) early the next day. To Irwin’s
protest that his infantry could reach the
objective while the armored division was
sorting itself out after crossing the river,
Eddy insisted that the exploitation was
a job for armor. 30
To the German LXXXIX Corps com-
mander, General Hoehne, it was equally
apparent that the American bridgehead
was firmly established and soon would
explode. While he knew that the main
body of the 6t h SS Mountain Division
probably would arrive the next day, he
also recognized that the division was too
depleted from the futile counterattack
south of Trier and the loss of a regiment
to General Hahm’s LXXXII Corps even
to postpone the inevitable. As the divi-
sion began to arrive piecemeal early on
the 15th, Hoehne committed it against
the left flank of the U.S. 90th Division,
hoping thereby at least to hold open an
escape route eastward to the Rhine. 31
General Hoehne’s preoccupation with
the American left flank became manifest
on 15 March in the pattern of American
advance. On the left, in the relatively
narrow triangle of land between the
Moselle and the Rhine, the 90th Divi-
sion’s 357th Infantry absorbed two sharp
counterattacks, one supported by two
tanks, another launched by newly arrived
troops of the 6th SS Mountain Divi-
sion. At the forest-cloaked village of Pfaf-
fenheck, midway between the Moselle
and the Rhine, a hundred SS troopers
30 The 5th Division telephone journals are a
valuable source for this period.
31 MS # B–377 (Hoehne). See also MSS # B–123
(Gersdorff; # B–831 (Felber).
248 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
supported by a lone tank fought furi-
ously and successfully against the 357th
Infantry’s 2d Battalion to hold a road
leading to the Rhine. Although a pla-
toon of Company E forced its way into
the village in early morning, the Ger-
mans cut off and captured the riflemen
before reinforcements could arrive.
Attacking down parallel roads to the
southeast, the 90th Division’s other two
regiments expanded the bridgehead line
six miles beyond the Moselle before the
4th Armored Division’s Combat Com-
mand A passed through in the afternoon.
The armor almost immediately ran into
stubborn resistance built around four
antitank guns and extended the line only
a little more than an additional mile
before coiling for the night.
On the right wing of the XII Corps,
where the enemy corps commander soon
lost all communications with his 159th
Division and presumed the unit doomed,
similar resistance failed to develop. 32
The advance was spectacular. Passing
through troops of the 5th Division at
noon, the 4th Armored’s Combat Com-
mand B quickly picked up momentum.
Roadblocks at the entrance of each town,
usually defended by no more than a
cluster of riflemen and machine gunners,
were about all that stood in the way.
White sheets fluttered from upper-story
windows, a now familiar sign that Ger-
man civilians had divined the approach-
ing end. Enjoying a bright, sunlit day,
fighter-bombers of the XI X Tactical Air
Command worked in close co-ordination
with the armor and before night fell had
flown 643 sorties to claim a new record
for five groups in one day. 33 I n just over
five hours, CCB moved sixteen miles be-
32 MS # B–377 (Hoehne).
33 XII Corps Opnl Dir 88, 16 Mar 45.
yond the Moselle, more than half the
distance to the Nahe River. The tankers
stopped for the night in Simmern, only
a few miles from the Soonwald, the last
big terrain obstacle short of the Nahe.
Convinced beyond doubt that CCB’s
deep thrust presaged a quick end to
organized resistance, General Eddy at-
tached motorized regimental combat
teams from the 90th and 5th Divisions
to CCA and CCB, respectively. I n order
to broaden the front and prevent other
German units from turning against the
penetration, he ordered the 89th Divi-
sion (Maj. Gen. Thomas D. Finley) , ex-
periencing its first combat, to cross the
Moselle beside the 5th Division early
the next morning, 15 March. Shifted by
General Patton from the VI I I Corps, the
11th Armored Division was to follow
on the 17th. 34
With General Hoehne’s LXXXIX
Corps split by Combat Command B’s
thrust, the Seventh Army commander,
General Felber, made the usual cry for
help to his Army Group G superior,
General Hausser. Noting that the first
contingents (two infantry battalions) of
the 559th Vol ks Grenadier Division had
arrived in the army’s sector during the
afternoon, Hausser promised to do what
he could to speed the rest of the divi-
sion. He also ordered the First Army to
release another volks grenadier division,
but in view of the canopy of Amer-
ican fighter planes that spanned the
Saar-Palatinate during daylight, neither
division probably would be able to ar-
rive in time to help.
For his own part, General Felber or-
dered General Hoehne to conduct a
fighting withdrawal using those forces of
34 Ibid.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE 249
the LXXXIX Corps that were east of the
American penetration, If compelled,
Hoehne was to fall back across the Rhine.
What was left of the 159th Division was
to be attached to the XIII Corps (Gen-
eral von Oriola) and was to assume a
bridgehead defense north of the Nahe
River. The bridgehead was to be used as
a reception station for the XIII Corps
once approval for the corps to withdraw
could be wrung from higher command. 35
The German commanders had every
reason to ask for withdrawal; two corps
of the Seventh Army, the XIII and
LXXX Corps, both still holding along
the Moselle, were in danger of encircle-
ment. The 4th Armored Division break-
through was but one aspect of that
danger. The German commanders also
had to cast wary glances over their left
shoulders at the attack of the U.S. XX
Corps.
Plunge to the Nahe and Fall of Koblenz
I n General Walker’s XX Corps, com-
bat commands of the 10th Armored Di-
vision (General Morris) began passing
through infantry of the 80th and 94th
Divisions before daylight on 16 March.
Although the Germans of General
Hahm’s LXXXII Corps during the night
had formed a new crust of resistance
sufficient to deny genuine armored ex-
ploitation for another twenty-four hours,
no doubt remained among either Ameri-
can or German commanders as the day
ended that a deep armored thrust was in
the offing.
When it came, the exploitation would
possess added power as a result of a visit
the Supreme Commander paid the Third
35 MSS # B–831 (Felber); # B–123 (Gersdorff).
Army commander in late morning of the
16th. Patton asked General Eisenhower
for another armored division, the 12th,
then in Seventh Army reserve, and Eisen-
hower agreed. Like General Eddy’s XI I
Corps, Walker’s XX Corps was to have
six divisions. 36
I n the XI I Corps, meanwhile, the ex-
ploitation involved no delay. Renewing
the drive from Simmern, the 4th Ar-
mored’s CCB took the obstacle of the
Soonwald in stride and plunged almost
unimpeded another fourteen miles. The
head of the column reached the Nahe
River at noon near Bad Muenster, two
miles upstream from the corps objective
of Bad Kreuznach, seized a railroad
bridge intact, and quickly established a
bridgehead.
Fighter-bombers of the XIX Tactical
Air Command again were out in force,
bombing and strafing anything German
that moved on the roads. Ironically, it
was the fighter-bombers that saved the
German Seventh Army commander, Gen-
eral Felber, and his chief of staff, Gen-
eral von Gersdorff, from capture. I n the
process of moving their command post,
the two officers had to take to the woods
to escape strafing American planes. Min-
utes later tanks of the 4th Armored Divi-
sion passed nearby, unaware of the prey
the planes had forced into hiding. For
an hour Felber and Gersdorff had to
hide in the woods before they were able
to escape over a back road.
It was but a short-lived respite for the
two German officers. Even as they re-
joined the rest of the Seventh Army staff
in Gensingen, midway between Bad
Kreuznach and the Rhine, the 4th Ar-
mored’s other attacking combat com-
36 Patton, War As I Knew It, pp. 259–62.
250
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
mand was fast bearing down on them.
Having run into stanch resistance near
the north edge of the Soonwald from the
6th SS Mountain Division's reconnais-
sance battalion, Combat Command A
again had found the going slower than
had CCB; but once air and artillery sup-
port had helped overcome the opposi-
tion, CCA too began to roll. The head
of CCA's column reached the Nahe op-
posite Gensingen before dark. Although
all bridges over the river had been de-
molished, fire from the tankers’ guns
forced the Seventh Army staff again to
flee. 37
At the Moselle River, German miseries
were compounded on 16 March in two
places. Upstream from Cochem and the
5th Division crossing sites, General Fin-
ley's 89th Division before daylight sent
two regiments across the river in assault
boats against a modicum of resistance.
As with the earlier crossings, fighting
was restricted almost entirely to the river-
side villages, and there the weak task
forces of General von Oriola's XIII
Corps could hope to hold only briefly.
By the end of the day, the inexperienced
89th Division held a substantial bridge-
head and was ready to receive the tanks
of the 11th Armored Division.
German troubles also increased down-
stream near the confluence of the Moselle
with the Rhine. There General Middle-
ton, his VIII Corps reduced to but one
division and cavalry group, sent his lone
division, the 87th, across the Moselle to
capture the city of Koblenz. 38
The 87th Division commander, Gen-
eral Culin, planned to do the job with
two regiments. The 347th Infantry was
to cross the river before daylight on 16
37 MSS # B–831 (Felber); # B–123 (Gersdorff).
38 VIII Corps FO 15, 14 Mar 45.
March about five miles upstream from
Koblenz. Through a narrow clearing in
the high woodlands that feature most of
the narrow triangle between the Moselle
and the Rhine, the regiment was to drive
southeast about seven miles to the Rhine,
thus cutting off the defenders of Koblenz
from any possible aid from the south. A
second regiment, crossing the Moselle
opposite Koblenz itself, was to reduce
the city.
Aware from intelligence reports that
the enemy's LXXXIX Corps had few
troops for defending the little triangle
other than weak contingents of the 276th
Yolks Grenadier Division and local Ko-
blenz defense forces, General Culin an-
ticipitated no major fight. The utter ease
of the 347th Infantry's crossing nonethe-
less came as a surprise. Not a shot, not a
round of shellfire, indeed, not a sign of
the enemy met the two assault battalions.
Dawn was fast approaching when the first
opposition developed, a scattering of
small arms fire in a village several hun-
dred yards from the river.
The first really troublesome resistance
came in the afternoon at Waldesch, mid-
way between the Moselle and the Rhine.
There recently arrived contingents of
the 6th SS Mountain Division effectively
blocked a little corridor of cleared land
leading to the Rhine.
Noting the ease of the 347th Infantry’s
crossing, General Culin saw no need to
repeat the process opposite Koblenz. In-
stead, he ordered a second regiment to
cross in the 347th’s sector, then swing
northeast against the city. By the end of
the day, 16 March, two battalions were
in the southern fringes of the city and
had cleared a new Moselle crossing site
for the rest of the regiment.
To the German Seventh Army com-
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
251
ENGINEERS OF THE 87TH DIVISION ferry a tank across the Moselle.
mander, General Felber, advent of the
new American force removed any ration-
alization that might have existed for the
LXXXIX Corps to attempt to hold
longer west of the Rhine. At noon on the
16th he told the corps commander, Gen-
eral Hoehne, to begin his withdrawal,
though in Koblenz itself Kampfgruppe
Koblenz was to fight to the last. As night
came, a heavy fog favored the evacua-
tion. Some 1,700 men, all that remained
of Hoehne’s LXXXIX Corps, made it to
the east bank. 39
39 MSS # B–377 (Hoehne); # B–123 (Gersdorff);
# B–831 (Felber). See also MS # B–124, 276th
Aided by deadly airbursts from high-
velocity antiaircraft guns firing from be-
yond the Rhine, the 1,800-man Kampf-
gruppe Koblenz put up a stout defense
the next day, 17 March, even though
the outcome of the fight was inevitable.
The last resistance was destined to fade
early on 19 March with no more than
half a hundred survivors escaping across
the Rhine. 40
Volks Grenadier Division (Col. Werner Wagner,
Actg Comdr.)
40 MS # B–377 (Hoehne).
252
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
Seventh Army’s Deliberate Attack
All along the Moselle, from Koblenz
to Trier, the German Seventh Army on
17 March was in peril, if not from direct
attack, then from the franking thrust
against the right wing of the First Army
by General Walker’s XX Corps. Collapse
of the Seventh Army clearly was but a
question of time. Soon the German First
Army, too, would be in dire straits, for
the American Seventh Army two days
earlier, on 15 March, had launched a
power drive against General Foertsch’s
army along a 70-mile front from the
vicinity of Saarlautern southeastward to
the Rhhe. Even if that offensive failed
to penetrate the West Wall, it might
tie the First Army troops to‘ the fortifi-
cations while Patton’s forces took them
from the rear.
The U.S. Seventh Army traced its
origin back to Sicily where General Pat-
ton had first led it into battle. An infan-
tryman who had seen combat many
months before on Guadalcanal, “Sandy”
Patch, had assumed command for the
invasion of southern France and a swift
advance northward. Patch’s chief of staff
was an artilleryman, Maj. Gen. Arthur
A. White, who had held a similar post
under Patch on Guadalcanal.
The Seventh Army numbered among
its ranks several relatively inexperienced
units but retained a flavoring of long-
term veterans. The VI Corps (Maj, Gen.
Edward H. Brooks), for example, and
three divisions—the 3d, 36th, and 45th-
had fought at length in the Mediter-
ranean theater, including the Anzio
beachhead. The XV Corps (Maj. Gen.
Wade H. Haislip) had joined the Sev-
enth Army after fighting across France
with the Third Army. A third corps, the
XXI (Maj. Gen. Frank W. Milburn),
was relatively new, having joined the
army in J anuary.
As the Seventh Army offensive began,
the basic question was how stubbornly
the Germans would defend before falling
back on the West Wall. Only General
Milburn’s XXI Corps, on the Seventh
Army left wing near Saarbruecken, was
fairly close to the West Wall, while other
units were as much as twenty miles away.
Making the army’s main effort in the
center, General Haislip’s XV Corps faced
what looked like a particularly trouble-
some obstacle in the town of Bitche. Sur-
rounded by fortresses of the French
Maginot Line, Bitche had been taken
from the Germans in December after a
hard struggle, only to be relinquished in
the withdrawal forced by the German
counteroffensive. On the army’s right
wing General Brooks’s VI Corps, farthest
of all from the West Wall, had first to
get across the Moder River, and one of
Brooks’s divisions faced the added diffi-
culty of attacking astride the rugged
Lower Vosges Mountains.
Two German corps and part of a third
were in the path of the impending Amer-
ican drive. At Saarbruecken, the left
wing of General Kniess’s LXXXV Corps
would receive a glancing blow from Mil-
burn’s XXI Corps. Having recently given
up the 559th Vol ks Grenadier Division
to the Seventh Army, Kniess had only
two divisions, one of which was tied
down holding West Wall positions
northwest of Saarbruecken. Southeast of
the town, with boundaries roughly co-
terminous with those of Haislip’s XV
Corps, stood the XIII SS Corps (SS
Gruppenfuehrer and Generalleutnant
der Waffen-SS Max Simon) with three
divisions. Extending the line to the
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
253
Rhine was the XC Corps (General der
Infanterie Erich Petersen) with two
volks grenadier divisions and remnants
of an infantry training division.
Although the Germans worried most
about a breakthrough in the sector of
Petersen’s XC Corps into the Wissem-
bourg Gap rather than through Simon’s
XIII SS Corps into the Kaiserslautern
corridor, the shifts and countershifts
made in preceding weeks to salvage re-
inforcements for the Seventh Army ac-
tually had left the XIII SS Corps the
stronger. I n addition to two volks grena-
dier divisions, Simon’s corps had the 17th
SS Panzer Grenadier Division, at this
point not much more than a proud name,
but a unit possessing considerably more
tanks and other armored vehicles than
were to be found in the entire adjacent
corps. The American main effort thus
aimed at the stronger German units,
though at this stage of the war strength
in regard to German divisions was but a
relative term. 41
As General Patch’s Seventh Army at-
tacked before daylight on 15 March, the
apparent answer on German intentions
was quick to come. Only in two places
could the resistance be called deter-
mined. One was on the left wing, where
the 63d Infantry Division (Maj. Gen.
Louis E. Hibbs) sought to bypass Saar-
bruecken on the east and cut German
escape routes from the city. The fact that
the 63d Division early hit the West Wall
provided ready explanation for the
41 For the German story, see MSS # B–071, XC
Infantry Corps December 1944–23 March 1945
(General der Infanterie Erich Petersen); # B–711,
Engagements of the XIII SS AK West of the Rhine
(Waffen-SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Ekkehard Al-
bert, CofS, XIII SS Corps); # B–121 (Kniess); #
B–238 (Wolf Hauser); and # B–600 (Paul Haus-
ser).
stanch opposition there. The other was
on the extreme right wing where an at-
tached 3d Algerian Infantry Division (3e
Division d’Infanterie d’Algerie) was to
clear the expanse of flatland between
Hagenau and the Rhine. There an urban
area closely backing the Moder River de-
fensive line and flat ground affording
superb fields of fire for dug-in automatic
weapons accounted in large measure for
the more difficult fighting. 42
Elsewhere local engagements some-
times were vicious and costly but usually
were short-lived. Antipersonnel and anti-
tank mines abounded. German artillery
fire seldom was more than moderate and
in most cases could better be classified
as light or sporadic. That was attribut-
able in part to a campaign of interdiction
for several days preceding the attack by
planes of the XI I Tactical Air Command
(Brig. Gen. Glenn O. Barcus) and by
D-day strikes by both the fighter-bombers
and the mediums and heavies of the
Eighth Air Force. The latter hit West
Wall fortifications and industrial targets
in cities such as Zweibruecken and Kai-
serslautern. The weather was beautifully
clear, enabling the aircraft to strike at a
variety of targets, limited only by range
and bomb-carrying capacity. Among the
German casualties were the operations
officers of two of the three XC Corps
divisions. 43
Of the units of the outsized (six di-
visions) XV Corps, only a regiment of
the 45th Division (Maj. Gen. Robert T.
Frederick) faced a water obstacle at the
start. That regiment had to cross the
Blies River at a site upstream from where
42 Unless otherwise noted, the account of Seventh
Army action is based on official records of Seventh
Army and subordinate units.
43 MS # B–071 (Petersen).
254
T HE LAST OFFENSIVE
the Blies turns northeast to meander up
the Kaiserslautern corridor. Yet even
before dawn men of the regiment had
penetrated the enemy’s main line of de-
fense beyond the river. Aided by search-
lights, they bypassed strongpoints, leav-
ing them for reserves to take out later.
As night came the 45th Division had
driven almost three miles beyond the
Blies to match a rate of advance that was
general everywhere except in the pillbox
belt near Saarbruecken and on the flat-
lands near the Rhine.
On the right wing of the XV Corps,
men of the 100th Infantry Division (Maj.
Gen. Withers A. Burress) drove quickly
to the outskirts of the fortress town of
Bitche. Perhaps aided by the fact that
they had done the same job before in
December, they gained dominating posi-
tions on the fortified hills around the
town, leaving no doubt that they would
clear the entire objective in short order
the next day, 16 March.
The only counterattack to cause ap
preciable concern hit a battalion of the
3d Division’s 7th Infantry. Veterans of
combat from the North African cam-
paign onward, the regiments of the 3d
Division (Maj. Gen. J ohn W. O’Daniel)
were making the main effort in the cen-
ter of the XV Corps in the direction of
Zweibruecken and the Kaiserslautern
corridor. Although a company of sup-
porting tanks ran into a dense minefield,
disabling four tanks and stopping the
others, a battalion of the 7th Infantry
fought its way into the village of
Uttweiler, just across the German fron-
tier. Then an infantry battalion from the
17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division, sup
ported by nine assault guns, struck back.
The Germans quickly isolated the
American infantrymen but could not
force them from the village. Supported
by a platoon of tank destroyers and the
regimental antitank company organized
as a bazooka brigade, another of the 7th
Infantry’s battalions counterattacked.
The men knocked out four multiple-
barrel 20-mm. flakwagons and seven as-
sault guns and freed the besieged
battalion.
On the Seventh Army’s right wing,
pointed toward the Wissembourg Gap,
divisions of General Brooks’s VI Corps
experienced, with the exception of the
3d Algerian Division, much the same
type of opposition. Although all four
attacking divisions had to overcome the
initial obstacle of a river, either the
Moder or a tributary, they accomplished
the job quickly with predawn assaults.
The Germans were too thinly stretched
to do more than man a series of strong-
points. On the corps left wing, the 42d
Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Harry J .
Collins) overcame the added obstacle of
attacking along the spine of the Lower
Vosges by avoiding the roads and villages
in the valleys and following the crests of
the high ground. Pack mules, already
proved in earlier fighting in the High
Vosges, provided the means of supply.
As with the 3d Division, a battalion
of the 103d Infantry Division (Maj. Gen.
Anthony C. McAuliffe) ran into a
counterattack, but the reaction it
prompted was more precautionary than
forced. Having entered Uttenhofen,
northwest of Hagenau, the battalion en-
countered such intense small arms fire
and shelling from self-propelled guns
that the regimental commander author-
ized withdrawal. When German infantry
soon after nightfall counterattacked with
support from four self-propelled pieces,
the battalion pulled back another few
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
255
TROOPS OF THE 63D DIVISION cross dragon’s teeth of the West Wall.
hundred yards to better positions on the
edge of a copse.
I n the sector of the 36th Infantry Di-
vision (Maj. Gen. J ohn E. Dahlquist),
the day’s fighting produced a heroic per-
formance by a rifleman of the 142d
Infantry, Pfc. Silvestre S. Herrera. After
making a one-man charge that carried a
German strongpoint and bagged eight
prisoners, Herrera and his platoon were
pinned down by fire from a second posi-
tion protected by a minefield. Disregard-
ing the mines, Herrera also charged this
position but stepped on a mine and lost
both feet. Even that failed to check him.
He brought the enemy under such ac-
curate rifle fire that others of his platoon
were able to bypass the minefield and
take the Germans in flank. 44
The 3d Algerian Division meanwhile
got across the Moder with little enough
trouble but then encountered intense
house-to-house fighting. Despite good ar-
tillery support made possible by the un-
limited visibility of a clear day, grazing
fire from automatic weapons prevented
the Algerians from crossing a stretch of
open ground facing the buildings of a
44 Private Herrera was awarded the Medal of
Honor.
256 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
former French Army frontier post. A
welter of mines and two counterattacks,
the latter repulsed in both cases by ar-
tillery fire, added to the problems. As
night fell, no Algerian unit had advanced
more than a mile.
On the second day, 16 March, indica-
tions that the Germans were fighting no
more than a delaying action increased
everywhere except, again, on the two
flanks. It seemed particularly apparent
in the zone of the XV Corps, where all
three attacking divisions improved on
their first day’s gains. Mines, demolitions,
and strongpoints usually protected by a
tank or an assault gun were the main
obstacles. By nightfall both the 3d and
45th Divisions were well across the Ger-
man frontier, scarcely more than a
stone’s throw from the outposts of the
West Wall, and the 100th Division, re-
lieved at Bitche by a follow-up infantry
division, had begun to come abreast.
Fighter-bombers of the XII Tactical Air
Command again were out in force.
Even though the Germans appeared
to be falling back by design, in reality
they intended a deliberate defense. Al-
though corps commanders had begged
to be allowed to withdraw into the West
Wall even before the American offensive
began, General Foertsch at First Army
and General Hausser at Army Group G
had been impelled to deny the entreaties.
The new Commander in Chief West,
Field Marshal Kesselring, remained as
faithful as his predecessor to the Hitler-
imposed maxim of no withdrawal any-
where unless forced. 45
As events developed, no formal order
to pull back into the fortifications ever
emerged above corps level. Beginning the
45 See, in particular, MS # B–711 (Albert).
night of 16 March, commanders facing
the U.S. XV Corps simply did the obvi-
ous, ordering their units to seek refuge
in the West Wall whenever American
pressure grew so great that withdrawal
or annihilation became the only alter-
natives. The next day commanders fac-
ing the U.S. VI Corps adopted the same
procedure.
I t became at that point as much a mat-
ter of logistics as of actual fighting before
all divisions of the Seventh Army would
be battling to break the concrete barrier
into the Saar-Palatinate; but as more
than one German commander noted with
genuine concern, whether any real fight
would develop for the West Wall was
not necessarily his to determine. That
responsibility fell to those units, deci-
mated and increasingly demoralized,
which were opposing the onrush of
American Third Army troops from west
and northwest into the German rear.
Breakthrough
Along the Nahe River units of the
Seventh Army’s hard-pressed LXXXIX
Corps got a measure of respite on 17
March as General Gaffey’s front-running
4th Armored Division paused to regroup.
Having established a bridgehead over the
Nahe late on 16 March, Gaffey wanted
time to service his tanks and to enable
his reserve combat command and the
infantry divisions of the XII Corps to
come up. The ensuing delay in Ameri-
can attacks aided the LXXXIX Corps in
its withdrawal, authorized the day be-
fore, to the east bank of the Rhine. 46
Elsewhere in the German Seventh
Army and on the right wing of the First
46 Msg, CG 4th Armored Div to CG 5th Inf Div,
161820 Mar 45, 5th Div G–3 J nl file, 16 Mar 45.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE 257
Army, there was no respite. As the re-
cently transferred 12th Armored Di-
vision moved to reinforce General
Walker’s XX Corps early on 17 March,
the 10th Armored Division drove eight
miles and seized a bridge intact over the
little Prims River, last water obstacle
short of the Nahe. Bringing searchlights
forward to provide illumination, the
armor prepared to continue the drive
through the night toward the Nahe it-
self at St. Wendel, eleven miles away. On
the right wing of the XI I Corps, the 89th
Division expanded its Moselle bridge-
head while the 11th Armored Division
moved in behind the infantry as prelude
to another thrust toward the Nahe at
Kirn, twenty miles beyond the Moselle. 47
Before daylight on the 17th, the
Seventh Army commander, General Fel-
ber, sent two divisions of the XI I I Corps
to counterattack what appeared to be the
most pressing of the converging Ameri-
can threats, the breakthrough of the 4th
Armored Division. The effort proved
futile. One division lacked sufficient
transport even to assemble in time to
counterattack, and the other, the 2d Pan-
zer Division (reduced to 4 tanks, 3 assault
guns, about 200 panzer grenadiers, and 2
artillery battalions), found its route
47 As an extension of an assignment to sweep the
north bank of the Moselle downstream from Trier,
the 76th Division the night of the 18th launched a
limited objective attack across the Moselle along-
side the 89th Division. In this attack, made by the
304th Infantry without active German opposition,
a medical aidman, Pvt. William D. McGee, entered
an antipersonnel minefield to rescue two men
wounded by exploding mines. He carried one to
safety but in returning for the other, he himself
set off a mine and was seriously wounded. Refusing
to allow others to risk their lives by coming to his
rescue, he died of his wounds. Private McGee was
awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
blocked by antitank barriers prematurely
closed by panicky German villagers. 48
Both Felber and the Army Group G
commander, General Hausser, had for
several days been pleading with OB
WEST for authority to withdraw the
entire Seventh Army behind the Rhine.
All requests drew the usual negative re-
ply. With the collapse of Felber’s two-
division counterattack, it became obvious
to those on the scene that in a few days,
if not in hours, both the XIII Corps and
the LXXX Corps would be encircled.
That was the prospect when on 17
March Field Marshal Kesselring issued
an ambiguous order. While directing
“the retention of present positions,” the
new Commander in. Chief West added a
qualification. “An encirclement and with
it the annihilation of the main body of
the troops,” the order stated, “is to be
avoided.” Hausser seized on this as suf-
ficient authority to pull back at least
behind the Nahe. 49
I n the meantime, the swift Third
Army advances had stirred higher com-
manders on the American side. Im-
pressed by Patton’s gains, the Supreme
Commander on 17 March met at Luné-
ville, in Lorraine, with the 6th Army
Group commander, General Devers, and
the two Army commanders concerned,
Patton and Patch. Noting the Third
Army’s gains and the obstacle of the
West Wall still opposing the Seventh
Army, General Eisenhower asked Patch
if he objected to Patton’s attacking across
the northern portion of the Seventh
Army’s zone perpendicular to the Sev-
enth Army’s axis of attack. General
Patch said no; the objective was to de-
48 MS # B–052 (Oriola).
49 Quotation is from MS # B–600 (Paul Haus-
ser). See also MS # B–123 (Gersdorff).
258 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
stroy the German forces. “We are all,”
he added, “in the same army.” 50
As worked out in detail by Patch and
Patton, the two armies split the area be-
tween the Nahe River and the Rhine
almost equally, with a new boundary
running just north of Kaiserslautern and
reaching the Rhine south of Worms. Pat-
ton nevertheless intended to take Kaiser-
slautern himself and then turn one
infantry and one armored division south-
east, deeper into Patch’s zone, to link
with the Seventh Army’s VI Corps along
the Rhine. Thereby he hoped to trap
any Germans who might remain in front
of the Seventh Army in the West Wall.
That accomplished, Patton “would clear
out of [Patch’s] area.” 51 The plan pre-
sumed, of course, that the Seventh Army
at that point would still be involved in
the West Wall, but in any event, Patch
apparently accepted the agreement with
the same good grace earlier accorded the
Supreme Commander’s proposal.
To General Patton’s subordinates, the
authority gained at Lunéville meant
pressure and more pressure. Why, Patton
railed to his XI I Corps commander, Gen-
eral Eddy, had the 11th Armored Di-
vision failed to push through the 89th
Division’s Moselle bridgehead on the
17th? Nor was there any excuse for the
4th Armored Division to pause for any
time at all at the Nahe River. “The heat
is on,” General Eddy told his own sub-
ordinates, “like I never saw before.” 52
It took another day before the effects
50 Seventh Army Report, p. 720. See also General
Devers’s personal diary, lent to OCMH (hereafter
cited as Devers Diary); Patton, War As I Knew It,
pp. 262 and 265.
51 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 265.
52 Msg, XIII Corps to 5th Div, and Telecon, CG
XII Corps to CG 5th Div, both in 5th Div G–3
J nl, 17 Mar 45; Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 264.
generated by the heat began to show up
on headquarters situation maps, but by
19 March a graphic representation of the
Third Army’s gains looked, in the words
of Patton’s colleague, General Hodges of
the First Army, “like an intestinal
tract.” 53 With the added weight of the
12th Armored Division (Maj. Gen. Rod-
erick R. Allen), General Walker’s XX
Corps made the more spectacular gains.
By midnight of the 19th, the 12th
Armored was across the upper reaches
of the Nahe and had gone on to jump a
little tributary of the Nahe, more than
twenty-three miles from the armor’s line
of departure of the day before. The 10th
Armored Division stood no more than
six miles from Kaiserslautern. Two of
the infantry divisions of the XX Corps,
their regiments motorized on organic
transport supplemented by trucks from
supporting units, mopped up behind the
armor, while the 26th Division com-
pleted its onerous task of rolling up West
Wall fortifications, then turned eastward
in a drive that converged with a north-
eastward thrust from Saarlautern by the
65th Division. 54
I n the XI I Corps, the 4th Armored
Division on 18 and 19 March failed to
regain its earlier momentum, partly be-
cause the division had to divert forces to
clear Bad Kreuznach and partly because
the Germans with their backs not far
from the Rhine stiffened. I n the two
53 Sylvan Diary, entry of 9 Mar. 45.
54 During the 65th Division’s attack on 18 March,
an aidman in the 259th Infantry, Pfc. Frederick C.
Murphy, continued to minister to his comarades
although wounded in one shoulder. Even after
setting off a mine that severed one of his feet, he
crawled about to help other wounded around him
until at last he set off a second mine that killed
him. He was awarded the Medal of Honor post-
humously.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
259
days, the 4th Armored advanced just over
ten miles beyond the Nahe.
It remained for the newly committed
11th Armored Division on the XI I Corps
right wing to register the more spectacu-
lar gains. Following its disappointing
showing in the Eifel, the 11th Armored
had a new commander, Brig. Gen.
Holmes E. Dager. Under Dager’s com-
mand, the division on 18 March raced
twenty miles to the Nahe River at Kirn.
The next day the armor streaked another
nineteen miles to the southeast, reaching
a point as far east as Kaiserslautern. 55
When combined with the drive of the
12th Armored Division on the north
wing of the XX Corps, the 11th
Armored’s rapid thrusts tied a noose
around what remained of the enemy’s
XIII and LXXX Corps. As the efforts of
those two corps to withdraw across the
Nahe and form a new defensive line went
for naught, the infantry divisions follow-
ing the American armor mopped up the
remnants of the 2d Panzer Division and
three volks grenadier divisions. Little
more than the headquarters of the two
corps escaped.
From all indications, the Germans in
the Seventh Army and on the right wing
of the First Army (Hahm’s LXXXII
Corps) were destined for annihilation.
As American armored spearheads ap-
peared without warning, seemingly over
every hill and around every curve, and
55 When a rocket from a Panzerfaust hit a tank
of the 41st Tank Battalion, wounding the platoon
sergeant and prompting others of the crew to
abandon the vehicle, the bow gunner, Pfc. Herbert
H. Burr, stayed inside and drove the tank into the
town of Doermoschel. Rounding a turn, he en-
countered an enemy 88. Alone, unable to fire while
driving, Burr headed directly toward the muzzle of
the 88, forcing the crew to flee and overrunning
the piece. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
as American planes wreaked havoc from
the air, hardly any semblance of organi-
zation remained in German ranks. I t was
less withdrawal than it was sauve qui
peut. Camouflage, antiaircraft security,
dispersal—those were fancy terms from
some other war, without meaning in this
maelstrom of flight. Highways were lit-
tered with wrecked and burning vehicles
and the corpses of men and animals.
Roadblocks at defiles and on the edges
of towns and villages might halt the in-
exorable onflow of tanks and half-tracks
temporarily, but the pauses were brief
and in the long run meaningless. Impro-
vised white flags flying from almost every
house and building along the way added
a final note of dejection to the scene.
Yet German commanders, still denied
the authority they begged to withdraw
behind the Rhine, continued to build up
new lines and to shift units here and
there—mainly on paper. As night came
on the 19th, the Seventh Army’s General
Felber might point to a new line running
southwest from Mainz in front of the
cities of Alzey and Kaiserslautern, but
Felber himself would have been among
the first to admit that it was less a line
than a proliferation of improvisations. 56
To the most optimistic German, the
end was near. Events on 20 March un-
derscored the fact. I n late afternoon con-
tingents of the 90th Division, on the left
wing of the XI I Corps, arrived on high
ground overlooking Mainz and the
Rhine. A short while later troops of the
4th Armored Division fought their way
into Worms and began to clear a path
through the city to the Rhine. Both the
10th and 12th Armored Divisions of the
XX Corps still had to emerge from the
56 See MS # B–082 (Beyer) and other manu-
scripts previously cited for this chapter.
260
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
wooded hills of the Pfaelzer Bergland
onto the Rhine plain, but they would be
on the plain by nightfall of the 20th.
Tacit admission from the Germans
that the campaign for the Saar-Palatinate
was almost over came late in the day
with long-delayed approval for the Sev-
enth Army withdrawal. That night on
ferries, rafts, small boats, almost anything
that floated, General Felber, his head-
quarters, and headquarters of Oriola’s
XIII Corps began to make their way
across the Rhine. General Beyer’s LXXX
Corps stayed behind, taking over all com-
bat troops and being transferred to the
First Army in an effort to forestall fur-
ther American advances directly into the
rear of the First Army. 57
Thrust to the Rhine
As the breakthrough of General
Walker’s XX Corps developed in the di-
rection of Kaiserslautern, concern had
mounted in the First Army lest those
units in the West Wall around Saar-
bruecken and Zweibruecken be trapped.
Once Kaiserslautern fell, the only routes
of withdrawal left to those troops led
through the Haardt Mountains south of
Kaiserslautern. Covered by a dense wood,
the Pfaelzer Forest, the region was
crossed laterally by only one main high-
way, by a secondary highway close be-
hind the West Wall, and by a few minor
roads and trails. The natural difficulties
posed by these twisting, poorly surfaced
routes already had been heightened by a
mass of wrecked vehicles as American
fighter pilots relentlessly preyed on hap-
less targets.
Using the authority granted by Kessel-
57 MSS # B–831 (Felber); # B–123 (Gersdorff);
# B–600 (Paul Hausser).
ring on 17 March to pull back units
threatened with encirclement, the First
Army’s General Foertsch authorized
withdrawal by stages of his westernmost
troops, those of General Kniess’s
LXXXV Corps. Over a period of three
days, units of the corps were to peel back
from west to east, redeploying to block
the main highway leading northeast
through the Kaiserslautern Gap.
Unfortunately for Foertsch’s plan, the
principal threat to the Kaiserslautern
Gap came not from west or southwest
but from northwest where Walker’s XX
Corps was pouring unchecked through
General Hahm’s LXXXII Corps. The
10th Armored Division’s arrival at
Kaiserslautern itself on 20 March meant
not only that the gap was compromised
by a force well in the rear of Kniess’s
formations but also that the only way out
for both Kniess’s troops and those of the
adjacent XIII SS Corps was through the
Pfaelzer Forest.
As Kniess’s withdrawal progressed, it
had the effect of opening a path through
the West Wall for the left wing of the
American Seventh Army. Despite a
stubborn rear guard, the 63d Division
of General Milburn’s XXI Corps broke
through the main belt of fortifications
near St. Ingbert late on 19 March. Had
events moved according to plan, Milburn
then would have sent an armored column
northward to link with Walker’s XX
Corps near St. Wendel; but so swift had
been the advance of Walker’s troops that
all worthwhile objectives in Milburn’s
sector beyond the West Wall already had
fallen. Milburn and his XXI Corps had
achieved a penetration but had no place
to go.
The Seventh Army commander, Gen-
eral Patch, seized on the situation to pro-
THE SAAR-PALATINATE 261
vide a boost for his army’s main effort,
the attack of the XV Corps through
Zweibruecken toward the Kaiserslautern
Gap. I n two days of hammering at Gen-
eral Simon’s XIII SS Corps, the divisions
of the XV Corps still had opened no hole
through the West Wall for armored ex-
ploitation. 58 Send a combat command,
Patch directed the XV Corps com-
mander, General Haislip, to move
through the 63d Division’s gap and come
in on the rear of the West Wall defenders
facing the XV Corps.
That the Americans would exploit the
withdrawal was too obvious to escape
the First Army commander, General
Foertsch. During the night of the 19th,
he extended the authority to withdraw
to the west wing of the XIII SS Corps.
Thus, hardly had the American combat
command begun to move early on 20
March to exploit the 63d Division’s pen-
etration when the 45th Division of the
XV Corps also advanced past the last
pillboxes of the West Wall near Zwei-
bruecken. During the night of the 20th,
the rest of the SS corps also began to pull
back, and the momentum of the 3d
58 For no lack of effort, as exemplified by heroic
actions of two members of the 45th Division. On
18 March when eight men of the 180th Infantry
were wounded while attacking a troublesome pill-
box, the company commander, Capt. J ack L.
Treadwell, went forward alone. Armed with a
submachine gun and hand grenades, he charged
the pillbox, captured 4 Germans in it, and went
on to reduce singlehandedly five other pillboxes
and to capture 14 more prisoners. I n three days,
culminating on the 18th, Cpl. Edward G. Wilkin,
157th Infantry, did much the same for his com-
pany. He too reduced six pillboxes singlehandedly,
killed at least 9 Germans, wounded 13, and took
13 prisoner. Captain Treadwell received the Medal
of Honor. Corporal Wilkin was awarded the Medal
of Honor posthumously; he was killed in a subse-
quent action before his special act of valor could
be officially recognized.
Division’s advance picked up accord-
ingly. 59
The German problem was to get the
survivors of both the LXXXV Corps and
the XIII SS Corps through the Pfaelzer
Forest despite three dire threats: one
from the closely following troops of the
American Seventh Army; another from
the 10th Armored Division of Walker’s
XX Corps, which at Kaiserslautern was
in a position to swing south and south-
east through the Pfaelzer Forest and cut
the escape routes; and a third from the
Argus-eyed fighter bombers of the XI I
Tactical Air Command.
I t was the last that was most apparent
to the rank and file of the retreating
Germans. Since speed was imperative, the
men had to move by day as well as by
night, virtually inviting attack from the
air. Since almost everybody, including
the troops of the motorized 17th SS Pan-
zer Grenadier Division, had to use either
the main east-west highway through the
forest or the secondary road close behind
the West Wall, American fighter pilots
had only to aim their bombs, their can-
non, and their machine guns in the gen-
eral direction of those roads to be assured
of hitting some target. An acute gasoline
shortage added to the German difficul-
ties. Almost every foot of the two roads
soon became clogged with abandoned,
damaged, or wrecked vehicles, guns, and
equipment. 60
The destruction in the Pfaelzer Forest
was in keeping with the pattern almost
everywhere. So long a target of both ar-
tillery and aircraft, the drab towns and
cities in and close to the West Wall were
59 For the German story, see MS # B–238 (Wolf
Hauser).
60 MSS # B–507 (Petersen); # B–238 (Wolf
Hauser).
262
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
a shambles. “It is difficult to describe
the destruction,’’ wrote the 45th Di-
vision commander, General Frederick.
“Scarcely a man-made thing exists in our
wake; it is even difficult to find buildings
suitable for CP’s: this is the scorched
earth.” 61 I n Zweibruecken, with the en-
tire business district razed, only about
5,000 people of a normal population of
37,000 remained, and they were hiding
in cellars and caves. Fires burned un-
controlled, neither water nor fire-fighting
equipment available to quench them. No
local government existed. Thousands of
released slave laborers and German sol-
diers who had changed into civilian
clothes complicated the issue for military
government officials. I n more than one
city, particularly Homburg, looting and
pillage were rampant.
Running the gantlet of American
fighter aircraft through the Pfaelzer
Forest, the amorphous mass of retreating
Germans faced still a fourth American
threat-General Brooks’s VI Corps,
which had followed closely the German
withdrawal from northeastern Alsace and
on 19 March had begun to assault the
West Wall on either side of Wissem-
bourg. There General Petersen’s XC
Corps was charged with holding the for-
tifications and denying access to the flat-
lands along the Rhine.
I n the Seventh Army’s original plan,
the attached 3d Algerian Division on the
right wing of the VI Corps along the
Rhine was to have been pinched out
after it reached the Lauter River at the
German frontier. The planners had not
reckoned with the aspirations of the
French and their First Army commander,
General de Lattre. Assured of support
61 Seventh Army Report, p. 738.
from the provisional head of the French
state, General Charles de Gaulle, de
Lattre was determined to acquire a zone
along the Rhine north of the Lauter in
order to assure a Rhine crossing site for
the final drive into Germany. 62
As the Algerians matched and some-
times exceeded the strides of the Ameri-
can units of the VI Corps and reached
the Lauter along a ten-mile front, de
Lattre had no difficulty pressing his ambi-
tion on the 6th Army Group commander,
General Devers. Using the 3d Algerian
Division and a combat group from the
5th French Armored Division, again to
be attached to the VI Corps, the French
were to continue northward some twelve
miles beyond the Lauter River, thereby
gaining limited Rhine River frontage
inside Germany. 63
The adjustment meant that the West
Wall assault by the four American di-
visions of the VI Corps was to be con-
centrated in a zone less than twenty miles
wide. Since the German XC Corps had
only: the remnants of two volks grenadier
divisions and an infantry training di-
vision to defend against both Americans
and French, a breakthrough of the forti-
fications was but a matter of time. Yet
just as had been the case in the zones of
the XXI Corps and the XV Corps, it was
less the hard fighting of the VI Corps
that would determine when the West
Wall would be pierced than it was the
62 De Lattre discussed the matter with de Caulle
in Paris shortly before the Seventh Army’s offen-
sive began. See Marshal J ean de Lattre de Tassigny,
Histoire de la Première Armée Française (Paris:
Librarie Plon, 1949). pp. 407–14.
63 Ibid.; Devers Diary, entry of 18 Mar 45; Ltr,
CG 6th AGp to CG’s SUSA and First French Army,
sub: Creation of Groupement Monsabert and Mod-
ification of Letter of Instructions Number 11,
SUSA Oral Instructions file, 19 Mar 45.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE 263
rampaging thrusts of the Third Army’s
XX Corps in the German rear.
The divisions of the VI Corps had
been probing the pillbox belt less than
twenty-four hours when General Walker,
leaving the task of gaining the Rhine to
the 12th Armored Division and of ac-
tually capturing Kaiserslautern to an
infantry unit, turned the 10th Armored
Division south and southeast into the
Pfaelzer Forest. By nightfall of 20 March,
two of the 10th Armored’s columns stood
only a few hundred yards from the main
highway through the forest, one almost at
the city of Pirmasens on the western
edge, the other not far from the eastern
edge. A third was nearing Neustadt, far-
ther north beyond the fringe of the
forest. The 12th Armored meanwhile
was approaching the Rhine near Lud-
wigshafen. Not only were the withdrawal
routes through the Pfaelzer Forest about
to be compromised but a swift strike
down the Rhine plain from Neustadt
and Ludwigshafen against the last escape
sites for crossing the Rhine appeared in
the offing.
In desperation the Luftwaffe during
20 March sent approximately 300 planes
of various types, including jet-propelled
Messerschmitt 262’s, to attack the Third
Army’s columns, but to little avail. Casu-
alties on the American side were minor.
Antiaircraft units, getting a rare oppor-
tunity to do the job for which they were
trained, shot down twenty-five German
planes. Pilots of the XI X Tactical Air
Command claimed another eight. 64
I n the face of the 10th Armored Di-
vision’s drive, the word to the western-
most units of the XC Corps to begin
falling back went out late on the 20th,
64 Figures are from TUSA AAR.
and when the 42d Division, in the moun-
tains on the left wing of the VI Corps,
launched a full-scale assault against the
West Wall late the next day, the attack
struck a vacuum. Soon after dawn the
next morning, 22 March, a regiment of
the 42d cut the secondary highway
through the Pfaelzer Forest. A column of
the 10th Armored had moved astride the
main highway through the woods and
emerged on the Rhine flatlands at Lan-
dau. Any Germans who got out of the
forest would have to do so by threading
a way off the roads individually or in
small groups.
By nightfall of 22 March the Germans
west of the Rhine could measure the
time left to them in hours. I n the West
Wall on either side of Wissembourg,
Germans of Petersen’s XC Corps con-
tinued to fight in the pillboxes in a man-
ner that belied the futility of their
mission. A breakthrough by the 14th
Armored Division (Maj. Gen. Albert C.
Smith) would nevertheless come soon.
Both at Neustadt and at Landau, rem-
nants of two divisions of the XIII SS
Corps, including the 17th Panzer Grena-
dier Division, had held through the day,
but early in the evening the defense
collapsed. General Beyer’s LXXX Corps,
transferred from the Seventh Army to
plug the hole from the north alongside
the Rhine, had hardly anything left to
prevent the 12th Armored Division from
driving southward from Ludwigshafen
toward Speyer. By nightfall of the 22d, a
column of the 12th Armored stood only
six miles from Speyer.
To forestall a second Remagen, the
Germans by 19 March had blown all
Rhine bridges from Ludwigshafen north-
ward. Of three that remained upstream,
the southernmost, at Maximiliansau, was
264
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
destroyed on 21 March when a round of
American artillery fire struck a deto-
nator, setting off prepared demolitions. 65
A second, at Speyer, was too immediately
threatened and too far removed from
the main body of German troops to be
of much use to any but the defenders
of Speyer itself. It would be blown late
on the 23d. 66
Over the remaining bridge, at Germer-
sheim, roughly east of Landau, as many
vehicles and field pieces as could be
salvaged began to pass during the night
of the 22d. Still no orders for final with-
drawal beyond the Rhine came from the
Commander in Chief West. Headquar-
ters of both the First Army and Army
Group G still were west of the river. 67
Some German officers were beginning
to wonder if every last increment of the
First Army was to be sacrificed when at
last, on 23 March, authority came to cross
the Rhine. 68 While the bridge at Germer-
sheim continued to serve artillery and
vehicles, foot troops began to evacuate
the west bank at three ferry sites south of
the town. A smattering of infantrymen,
an occasional tank or assault gun, and a
regiment of antiaircraft guns operating
against ground targets formed rear guard
perimeters west of the ferry sites.
Although all divisions of the U.S. VI
Corps achieved clear breakthroughs dur-
ing 23 March, they came in contact only
with rear guards and failed to affect the
German evacuation materially. Because a
German force in Speyer fought doggedly,
contact between the 12th and 14th
65 MSS # B–507 (Petersen); # B–711 (Albert).
66 12th Armored Div AAR, Mar 45.
67 See MSS # B–507 (Petersen); # B–238 (Wolf
Hauser); # B–600 (Paul Hawser); # B–082
(Beyer).
68 MS # B–238 (Hauser).
Armored Divisions was delayed. Both,
armored divisions early on 24 March sent
task forces in quest of the lone remain-
ing Rhine bridge, the one at Germer-
sheim, but neither had reached the
fringes of the town when at 1020 the
Germans blew up the prize. 69 Formal
German evacuation of the west bank
ended during the night of the 24th, while
American units continued to mop up
rear guards and stragglers through the
25th.
I t is impossible to ascertain how many
Germans escaped from the Saar-Palatin-
ate to fight again on the Rhine’s east
bank, or how much equipment and
matériel they managed to take with
them. Yet German losses clearly were
severe. “Tremendous losses in both men
and matériel,” noted the chief of staff of
the First Army. 70 The staff of the Ameri-
can Seventh Army estimated that the
two German armies had lost 75 to 80
percent of their infantry in the Saar-
Palatinate fight. The Seventh Army and
its attached French units captured 22,000
Germans during the campaign, and the
Third Army imprisoned more than
68,000. 71 The Third Army estimated that
the German units opposing its advance
lost approximately 113,000 men, includ-
ing prisoners, while the Third Army
casualties totaled 5,220, including 681
killed. The Seventh Army, much of its
fighting centered in the West Wall, prob-
ably incurred about 12,000 casualties, in-
cluding almost a thousand killed. 72
For all the inevitability of German
69 VI Corps AAR, Mar 45.
70 MS # B–238 (Wolf Hauser).
71 The Third Army’s figure is from 18 through
22 March only. See TUSA AAR, p. 315.
72 Seventh U.S. Army casualties are an estimate
based on detailed figures found for the VI Corps
only.
THE SAAR-PALATINATE
265
defeat, the Saar-Palatinate campaign had
provided a remarkable example of of-
fensive maneuver, particularly by the
Third Army. I t was also a striking dem-
onstration of co-operation and co-
ordination among units and their
commanders at various levels, including
air commands. There had been moments
of confusion-in the XI I Corps, for ex-
ample, ambitious 5th Division units got
astride the routes of attack of the 4th
Armored Division, and on 21 March a
column of the Seventh Army’s 6th Ar-
mored Division got entangled with the
Third Army’s 26th Division—but in
view of the number of units and the
speed and extent of the maneuver, those
moments were few. This was despite the
fact that four of the American corps con-
tained an unwieldy six divisions, which,
i n the words of the XII Corps com-
mander, General Eddy, was “like driv-
ing six horses abreast while standing
astraddle on the center pair.” 73
I n view of the success of the campaign,
73 Dyer, XII Corps p. 344.
criticism of it would be difficult to sus-
tain. Yet it was a fact nonetheless that
the German First Army —and to some ex-
tent the Seventh Army —for all the losses,
conducted a skillful delaying action to
the end in the face of overwhelming
strength on the ground and in the air
and never succumbed to wholesale en-
circlement, despite a higher command
reluctant to sanction any withdrawal. I n
the process the Germans had withstood
the clear threat of a rapid drive by some
unit of the Third Army or the Seventh
Army along the west bank of the Rhine
to trap the German First Army.
Those contingents of both German
armies that did escape would have to be
met again on the east bank of the Rhine.
To assure that the Germans would be at
the utmost disadvantage in that meeting,
the commander of the Third Army and,
to a somewhat lesser extent, the com-
mander of the Seventh Army had been
thinking for several days in terms of
quick crossings of the Rhine.
And already Patton had done some-
thing about it.
CHAPTER XIII
The Rhine Crossings in the South
From the first, General Patton had
hoped to exploit his Third Army’s part
in the Saar-Palatinate campaign into a
crossing of the Rhine. He wanted a
quick, spectacular crossing that would
produce newspaper headlines in the man-
ner of the First Army’s seizure of the
Remagen bridge. He wanted it for a
variety of reasons, no doubt including
the glory it would bring to American
arms, to the Third Army, and possibly
to himself, but most of all he wanted
it in order to beat Field Marshal Mont-
gomery across the river. Despite General
Eisenhower’s earlier indications to the
contrary, Patton remained concerned
lest the Supreme Commander put the
First and Third Armies on the defensive
while farming out ten American di-
visions to the 21 Army Group. 1
I t was this concern, shared by Generals
Bradley and Hodges, that hovered spec-
terlike over the meeting of the three
American commanders at Bradley’s head-
quarters in Luxembourg City on 19
March. Having received Eisenhower’s
permission earlier in the day to increase
the First Army’s strength in the Remagen
bridgehead and an alert to be ready to
break out from 23 March onward, Gen-
eral Bradley told Patton to do the very
thing the Third Army commander
wanted to do—take the Rhine on the
1 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 264.
run. 2 Once the Third Army had jumped
the river in the vicinity of Mainz, the
First and Third Armies were to converge
in the Lahn River valley, then continue
close together to the northeast, generally
up the Frankfurt-Kassel corridor. The
object—in Patton’s mind, at least-was
to get such a major force committed in a
far-reaching campaign that the 12th
Army Group rather than Montgomery’s
21 Army Group “could carry the ball.” 3
To avoid a second crossing operation
at the Main River, which joins the Rhine
at Mainz, the most logical Rhine crossing
site for the Third Army was at some
point downstream from Mainz. To Gen-
eral Patton and his staff, determined re-
sistance in the outskirts of Mainz seemed
to indicate that the Germans appreciated
this fact and would be watching for a
crossing near the city. Why not, Patton
reasoned, accept the handicap of a cross-
ing of the Main in exchange for surprise
at the Rhine? Patton told General Eddy
of the XI I Corps to make a feint near
Maim while actually crossing the Rhine
ten miles upstream at Oppenheim. 4
( Map X)
As the troops of the XI I Corps drew
2 Bradley, A Soldier’s Story, p. 519.
3 Ibid.
4 Dyer, XII Corps, p. 360; Patton, War As I Knew
It, pp. 266–67. Patton later wrote that he consid-
ered it a “great mistake” not to have made this
first crossing downstream from Mainz in order to
avoid an assault crossing of the Main.
THE RHI NE CROSSINGS I N THE SOUTH
267
up to the Rhine, General Eddy had in-
tended to put the 5th Division in corps
reserve. With that in mind, the division
commander, General Irwin, called a con-
ference of his unit commanders, but be-
fore the meeting could begin early on 21
March, Irwin himself received a sum-
mons to appear at corps headquarters.
When he returned, his manner and
opening remarks alerted his commanders
to startling news. Conqueror of twenty-
two rivers in France, Belgium, and Ger-
many, the 5th Division was to challenge
the mightiest of them all—the Rhine. 5
While the 90th Division made a feint
behind a smoke screen at Mainz, General
Irwin explained, the 5th Division was to
launch a surprise night crossing at Op-
penheim. Perhaps the most startling
news of all was the timing. Although
Irwin personally believed Patton would
not order the crossing before the 23d,
the division was to be prepared to go
within a few hours that same night, 21
March.
The magnitude of the task of bringing
assault boats, bridging, and other engi-
neer equipment from depots far in the
rear was argument enough for delaying
the crossing at least until the 23d. Yet
hardly had General Bradley on the 19th
told Patton to cross when convoys started
forward with this equipment from stocks
carefully maintained in Lorraine since
the preceding fall. Although another day
would pass before tactical advances in
the Saar-Palatinate opened direct routes
for the convoys, the Third Army com-
mander would listen to no voices cau-
tioning delay. Each day, even each hour,
5 Irwin Diary, 20–21 Mar 45, as cited in Dyer,
XII Corps, p. 364; Conf Notes, 5th Div G–3 J nl
file, 21 Mar 45; XII Corps AAR, Mar 45; XII Corps
Opnl Dir 92, 21 Mar 45.
gave the Germans additional time to
recover from the debacle in the Saar-
Palatinate and prepare a Rhine defense.
Furthermore, Field Marshal Mont-
gomery’s Rhine crossing was scheduled
to begin during the night of 23 March.
If Patton was to beat Montgomery across,
he had to move by the night of the 22d.
When General Eddy in midmorning
of 22 March told General Irwin that Pat-
ton insisted on a crossing that night,
Irwin protested that it would be impossi-
ble to make a “well-planned and ordered
crossing” by that time. On the other
hand, Irwin added, he would be able “to
get some sort of bridgehead.” 6 Some sort
of bridgehead was all General Patton was.
after.
During late morning of the 22d the
commander of the 5th Division’s 11th
Infantry, Col. Paul J . Black, was at his
3d Battalion’s command post in the town
of Nierstein, a mile downstream from
Oppenheim, when word came from Gen-
eral Irwin. The 11th Infantry was to
cross the Rhine that night at 2200.
Allotted about 500 boats manned by
the 204th Engineer Battalion, the 11th
Infantry was to employ two battalions
in the assault wave, the 3d crossing at
Nierstein, the 1st at Oppenheim. Al-
though an impressive artillery group-
ment of thirteen battalions stood ready
to fire on call, they were to eschew pre-
paratory concentrations in quest of sur-
prise. Observation for the artillery was
excellent: hills on the west bank of the
Rhine overlook an expanse of generally
flat ground stretching more than ten
miles beyond the river. The ground is
crisscrossed by small canals and drainage
6 Quotations are from Irwin Diary, as cited in
Dyer, XII Corps, p. 364.
268
THE LAST OFFENSIVE
ditches. The width of the Rhine at this
point ranges from 800 to 1,200 feet.
Once the 11th Infantry and its sister
regiments had secured a bridgehead, the
4th Armored Division was to exploit to
the northeast, bypassing Frankfurt-am-
Main and gaining a bridgehead over the
Main River east of Frankfurt at Hanau.
From that point the XII Corps was to
drive northward toward a juncture with
the First Army in the Lahn River valley.
The 6th Armored, 89th, and 90th Di-
visions also were available. 7
Despite the haste involved in the
timing of the assault, a force of 7,500
engineers made elaborate preparations
for supporting the infantry and bridging
the Rhine. Early assault waves were to
transport bulldozers and air compressors
so that work could begin immediately on
cutting ramps for dukws and preparing
bridge and ferry sites. Although first
waves were to paddle across in assault
boats, reinforcements were to cross in
dukws and—as at Remagen—LCVP’s
manned by Naval Unit 2 of the U.S.
Navy. With the aid of searchlights
mounted on tanks, bridge building was
to begin soon after the first infantrymen
reached the far shore. 8
As the troops prepared for the cross-
ing, the Third Army commander enter-
tained a suggestion from his chief of
artillery, Brig. Gen. Edward T. Williams,
to speed build-up of reinforcements by
a novel method. Williams urged as-
sembling approximately a hundred artil-
lery liaison planes to carry one soldier
each to landing fields on the east bank.
7 TUSA Opnl Dir, 22 Mar 45; XX Corps FO 17,
22 Mar 45.
8 Conf Notes, 5th Div G–3 J nl file, 21 Mar 45;
P. H. Timothy, The Rhine Crossing, student
thesis prepared at the Engineer School, Fort Bel-
voir, Va., 1946; AAR’s of engineer units.
With each plane making two flights each
half hour, a battalion could be airlifted
every two hours. Although the 5th Di-
vision commander, General Irwin, pro-
tested, fearing heavy losses from
antiaircraft fire, General Patton went so
far as to order a practice flight. Appear-
ance of German planes over the crossing
sites eventually would prompt cancel-
lation, but Patton remained convinced
the idea was “extremely good.” 9
Troops of the 11th Infantry could dis-
cern few indications that the Germans
would seriously contest the assault. An
occasional cluster of shells from artillery
and mortars fell in the streets of Nier-
stein and Oppenheim, reminder enough
that an enemy with the power to kill
still peopled the far bank, but neither
American artillery observers nor aircraft
pilots could find lucrative targets.
Only two days had passed since Field
Marshal Kesselring had given his bless-
ing to withdrawal of the Seventh Army
behind the Rhine, and German com-
manders were as intent at the moment on
re-establishing some semblance of organi-
zation in their fleeing remnants as on
actually manning a defensive line.
Charged with holding more than fifty
miles of the Rhine from Wiesbaden, op-
posite Mainz, to Mannheim, the Seventh
Army commander, General Felber, had
only one regular corps headquarters, the
XIII Corps (General von Oriola), and
headquarters of the local military dis-
trict, Wehrkreis XII. Heretofore engaged
solely in recruiting, training, and rear
area defense, the Wehrkreis headquarters
was summarily upgraded to become the
XII Corps, though Felber had no di-
visions to go wi th the advancement. I n
8 Patton, War As I Knew It, p. 267; XII Corps
G–3 to 5th Div G–3, 5th Div G–3 J nl, Mar 45.
THE RHI NE CROSSINGS IN THE SOUTH
269
the entire Seventh Army he possessed
only four divisions still organized as
such.
Two of those divisions were little
more than remnants grouped around
their surviving staffs. A third, the 559th
Volks Grenadier Division, still had about
60 percent of its normal strength, since
some battalions had arrived too late for
active commitment in the counterattack
role planned west of the Rhine. All three
divisions were under the XIII Corps, the
559th near Mannheim, the other two
extending the line to the north. The
fourth division, the 159th Volks Grena-
dier, though severely depleted and dis-
organized, Felber had earmarked as an
army reserve.
Thus the provisional XII Corps,
charged with the Wiesbaden-Oppenheim
sector, had no divisional unit, only rear
echelon security detachments, hastily
equipped students and cadres from near-
by training schools, and convalescent
companies. Neither headquarters of the
XII Corps nor Felber himself knew
much about the numerical strength of
these conglomerate forces, but their
fighting abilities clearly were limited. Al-
though efforts were under way to rally
the residue of other divisions, including
the 2d Panzer, and organize them under
division staffs as small task forces, it
would be some days before those efforts
produced results. 10
While Felber and other German com-
manders might hope the Americans
would pause for a systematic build-up
before jumping the Rhine, the experi-
10 For the German story, see MSS # B–831 (Fel-
ber); # A-893, The Final Phase of the War, (Gen-
eralmajor Freiherr von Gersdorff); and # B–392,
Historical Report on the Campaign “Central Ger-
many” From 22 Until 31 March 1945 (General-
leutnant Graf Ralph von Oriola).
ence at Remagen and all previous deal-
ings with General Patton indicated
otherwise. An immediate attack held par-
ticular concern for General Felber, since
of three sites along the upper Rhine the
Germans considered most suitable for
crossing attempts, one was in the Seventh
Army sector—at Oppenheim. Yet be-
cause of the accidental site where fleeing
troops had reassembled after crossing the
Rhine, the bulk of the Seventh Army’s
formations, the three so-called divisions
under the XIII Corps, were well south
of Oppenheim.
Despite a promise from the army
group commander to bring up more
trainees, convalescents, stragglers, any-
body to swell the ranks, Felber knew that
the only hope of thwarting an immediate
crossing at Oppenheim lay with his own
reserve, the 159th Volks Grenadier Di-
vision. A visit to that command revealed
only two weak infantry regiments of two
battalions each and two light artillery
batteries, plus a few odds and ends.
To complicate matters further, Gen-
eral Felber had lost all communication
and contact with the First Army to the
south, some of whose units still were
fighting on the west bank. To the north
contact existed with the LXXXIX Corps,
which had withdrawn several days earlier
behind the Rhine. On the theory that
this corps, holding the sector opposite
Koblenz, would be drawn into the fight-
ing against American units breaking out
of the Remagen bridgehead, OB WEST
had transferred it to Army Group B.
The chances of repelling a blow at
Oppenheim, should it come right away,
were pathetically meager.
The moon shone with disturbing
brightness as men of the 11th Infantry’s
270 THE LAST OFFENSIVE
3d Battalion crept down to the Rhine
at Nierstein a few minutes before 2200
the night of 22 March. Half an hour be-
hind schedule, the leading assault boats
carrying men of Company K pushed out
into the stream. Not a sign of protest
arose from the opposite shore.
First to touch down on the east bank
was an assault boat carrying a platoon
leader, eight men, and Company K’s
commander, 1st Lt. Irven Jacobs. The
rest of the company arrived safely mo-
ments later. Seven surprised Germans
promptly surrendered and obligingly
paddled themselves across the river with-
out escort. 11
Leading the 1st Battalion’s assault a
few hundred years upstream at Oppen-
heim, men of Companies A and B were
less fortunate. The assault boats were in
midstream when German machine gun-
ners opened fire. The infantrymen and
their engineer colleagues had no choice
but to paddle straight into the teeth of
the fire. Most of them made it, but a
fierce skirmish went on for half an hour
before the last German defender gave in.
For all the noise and apparent ferocity
of the defense, the German gunners im-
posed few losses on the attackers. In the
assault crossing of the Rhine, the entire
11th Infantry incurred only twenty
casualties.
By midnight all troops of the 11th
Infantry were across and ready to drive
on the first tier of villages beyond the
river, and men of a second regiment had
begun their trek to the assault boats.
Only at that point did the first hostile
artillery fire—a smattering of what might
11 Unless otherwise noted, the tactical story is
from official unit records, combat interviews, and
the unofficial 5th Division history. Although few,
the combat interviews are particularly valuable.
have been expected—begin to fall. Some
fifty rounds, for example, including oc-
casional shells from self-propelled guns,
fell before daylight on Oppenheim.
Soon after dawn twelve German planes
strafed and bombed the crossing sites, the
first of a series of aerial raids, usually
by only one or two planes, that were to
persist throughout the day of 23 March.
Damage was negligible. Two men in a
battalion command post in Oppenheim
were wounded and an ammunition truck
was set ablaze, but otherwise the only
casualty of the German strikes was Gen-
eral Patton’s scheme to transport infantry
reinforcements across the river in artil-
lery liaison planes. American pilots who
flew cover most of the day claimed nine-
teen German planes destroyed.
Success of the assault crossing assured,
American commanders concentrated on
quick and heavy reinforcement and on
putting as much distance as po